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CHRIST 



OUR EXAMPLE 



BY CAROLINE (fry) UJA^^erv-u- 

AUTHOR OF ''THE LISTENER," "SCRIPTURE READ- 
ER'S GUIDE," &c. &c. 



SECOND* EDITION. 



NEW- YORK : 

PUBLISHED BY LEAVITT, LORD & CO. 

18^ Broad%%ay. 

BOSTON :— CROCKER & BREWSTER, 

47 WashiDgton-street. 

1834. 






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CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE, 



CHAPTER L 

INTRODUCTORY. 

^^ But toe alU with open face beholding as in a 
glass the glory of the Lord^ ar£ changed 
into the same image from glory to glory, 
^ven as .by the Spirit of the Jjord,^^ — 
2 Cor. ill. 18. 

Among those who call tliemselves Christians, 
there is a large class with whom some vague 
estimate of character makes up the whole idea 
of religion. A good Christian is understood to 
be one who pays his debts, loves his family, 
deals honourably with his neighbours^ and 
carries himself amiably and respectably ac- 



4 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 

according to his station in society ; without any ■ 
reference to what he believes of the doctrines of ^ ' 
Christianity, or whether he believes in Christ 
at all. The unbelieving poet's axiom is their 
favourite creed — 

" His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 

But the creed is falser than the axiom. This 
is in the abstract true ; for there is no rule of 
right but the revealed will of G od — no example 
of right but the example of Christ; and he 
whose life is conformed to these, cannot indeed 
be wrong. '' This is the will of God, that ye 
believe in him whom he hath sent." To believe 
in Christ and follow in his footsteps, we must 
be born anew and sanctified by the Holy Spirit 
— and this is to be a Christian indeed. But 
this is not the poet's meaning, nor the meaning 
of his unconscious copyists, whether they be 
avowed Socinians, or of the many who are 
Socinian in heart without being aware of it. 
These all, unless they think it bad taste to 
name the name of Christ, or unless the enmity 
of the heart to the doctrines of the gospel is 
so great that they would exclude Christ from 
their religion altogether, profess to think the 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. O 

example of Jesus the only thing worthy of 
attention ; the morality of the Bible the only 
thing of importance in it. To conform to 
these, they fancy themselves fully competent, 
by virtue of some power given by God at their 
birth ; or some grace iinparted in baptism ] or 
some act of amnesty, they scarce know what, 
by which the will is to be taken for the deed, 
and they who have not done well are to be 
accepted as having done the best they could. 
If to persons of this class we speak of faith, 
they tell us that works are better. If we speak 
of sin, they say, God is mercifal, and their 
hearts are good. If we set Christ before them, 
they say it is better to be like him than to talk 
so much about him. The disciples of Christ, 
living by faith upon his name, meet w^ith 
ungentle treatment at their hands ] the long re- 
pented sins of former days, the deeply iiioumed 
defectibility of present conduct, being esteemed 
sufficient evidence of hypocrisy. But if there 
be those on the other hand, who '*^ deny the 
Lord that bought them," and live without God 
in the world, they are defended on the. ground 
that, being upright and conscientious men, we 
have nothing to do with what they think. Nay, 
1* 



b CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 

I have observed that even the word of God 
meets with but partial acceptance at the hands 
of these moralists ; they like none of it but the 
gospels, which they idly and falsely conceive to 
be the practical part of Scriptm'e. '' Character, 
character !" — this is their cry ; they will have 
nothing but character. It seems to them that 
professors of religion cannot be right, their 
conduct being so defective. Men of the world 
cannot be wrong, being so amiable and up- 
right. 

Should any such persons cast an eye upon 
this page, I would bespeak from them a favour- 
able attention. They will not find here a 
treatise upon faith. I shall not attempt to 
prove that such opinions virtually set at nought 
the sacrifice of Christ, make it useless, make it 
vain ; deny the truth of the Scriptures, the 
corruption of man, the nature of sin, and the 
faithfulness of God in what he has revealed, 
and sink Christianity to a level with Deism or 
Mahometanism, which each has a code of morals 
of its own. The subject of this volume is the 
fruits of faith, the Christian character — the 
very test by which iheij have chosen to be tried. 
We cannot deny it is a Scripture test : " By 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 7 

t their fruits ye shall know them." I bespeak 
only that the fruit the branches bear shall 
resemble that which grew upon the stem ; that 
there be no choosing of it by our tastes and 
habits, or the maxims and conventions of so- 
ciety ; that there be no judgment of it but the 
judgment of God as declared m holy Scripture. 

I am aware that amongst the number who 
thus suspend their religious opinions upon some 
indefinite notions of character, there are persons 
neither so light nor so careless, though perhaps 
not less mistaken than those I have described. 
These are they who read the Bible with serious- 
ness, who seek truth with a willing and de- 
siring mind, do reverence to their own abstract 
idea of religion, and think that if they could 
see it exemplified, they should love it and bow 
down before it. But because they have formed 
their beau ideal of a Christian from some fancy 
of their own, rather than from the word of 
God, they are baffled and puzzled by what 
they see. In the people of this world they 
frequently perceive a dignified uprightness, a 
poUshed amiability, very strikingly contrasted 
with the rugged humours and defective conduct 
of some of the children of God. Could the 



b CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 

heart of each be unclosed, and the springs and v.^ 
motives of action be brought to the test of ' 
Scripture, there would be little difficulty, I * 
believe, in deciding v/hich of them approaches 
nearest to our great Example. But the exterior 
only is perceived, and this is measured by the 
'' measure of a man," and not of God ; and the 
honest inquirer after Christian character, still 
persuading himself he shall love it when he 
finds it, either takes that for it which is not it, 
and does homage to a counterfeit ; or, failing 
to recognise the reality, when he finds it. learns 
to doubt if it has existence anywhere. I shall 
be very glad if I can show to any such that 
tl^ey mistake the character they are in search 
of; that they have not examined the Divine 
Original with sufficient minuteness to know the 
traces of his image when they see them. Some 
part of the difficulty that opposes their accept- 
ance of a profession so httle borne out by the 
character of the professors, may perhaps be 
removed if I can convince them that, how^ever 
beautiful appears the character of the upright 
and amiable of this world, it bears not the 
slightest resp.mblance to the character of Hiui, 
to be conformed to wdiose hkeness we were 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. if 

redeemed, while, in the rude, the indistinct, 
the unformed hnes sketched in the bosom of 
the weakest behever, there are some traces of 
what will be a likeness, though as yet indistinct 
and unattractive. 

In opposition to the virtual Socinianism I 
have described, the evangelical church' has 
extensively maintained the incapacity of man 
in his natural state to do any thing good in the 
sight of God; the condemnation under which 
he lies to everlasting misery ; the necessitj^ of 
an entire change of heart, a new principle, 
a new nature, before he can begin the Christian 
course ; also that this change does not take 
place by formal admission into the external 
church, but by the direct influence of the Holy 
Spiiit, given by God, according to the good 
pleasure of his will, of his free mercy, and for 
Christ's sake — repentance towards God, and 
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, being the first 
evidences of this vital ch-inge of the heart, 
this new existence. Conversion has conse- 
quently become the prominent object in the 
teaching of the gospel, the theme of the 
preacher's exhortation and the believer's hope. 
" Repent and be converted," is the universal 



10 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 

command. *' You hath he quickened who were 
dead in trespasses and sins," is the precious 
assurance, the earnest of all future good. This 
conversion, this change of heart, this new birth, 
has been compared in Scripture to many things, 
which in its completeness, and sometimes in its 
suddenness it resembles. It is the giving of 
eyesight to the blind, without which he cannot 
begin to see. It is the bringing of the dead to 
life, without which he cannot begin to exercise 
the functions of life. It is the release of 
a slave from bondage, without which he cannot 
enter the service of another master. Such are 
the figures used in Scripture for the conversion, 
the spiritual regeneration of the soul — all im- 
plying commencem.ent, a beginning, on which 
every thing else is consequent. While the 
heart is unchanged and the spirit unrenewed, 
vain is every exhortation to serve God and lead 
a good and Christian life. This is to demand 
the fruit before the tree is planted — to reap the 
harvest before the field is sown. It is not the 
language of Scripture. " Repent and beheve 
in the Lord Jesus Christ," be conscious of 
your need of such a change, and believe that 
it is the gift and purchase of redeeming love. 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 11 

This is the first exhortation addressed to every 
sinner under the gospel dispensation ; and as 
sinners once dead in trespasses and sins, this is 
the theme of our prayers, our gratitude, and x 
our rejoicing. For we believe on the word 
and faithfulness of God, that the work he has 
begun he will complete ; and having by his 
Spirit touched us into life, he will preserve the 
feeble breath within us till it grows into immor- 
tality. So long as the assurance of this first 
act of mercy abides within us, we fee], amid 
all the sins and dangers that surround us, no 
apprehension for the issue of our travail. Con- 
verted to Christ, changed from our natural 
enmity to love, we believe that we are saved. 
Being j^astified freely, we have confidence to- 
wards God ; and God is more honoured by our 
confidence than he could be by our doubts, or 
any degree of mistrustful, anxious labour with 
which we might endeavour to relieve them. 
This is the foundation of Christian character, 
the living principle, without which the action 
of life cannot be carried on; and proportioned, 
I believe, to the vigour of this principle will be 
the action it produces. 



12 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 

But on this good foundation we perceive 
a disposition now abroad to build a structure 
totally at variance with the symmetry and 
beauty of the divine plan of salvation ; a struc- 
ture so awkward and ill proportioned, as at 
once to prove itself the fabrication of human 
weakness, which, driven from error on the one 
side, incHnes immediately to error on the other. 
Dwelling continually on the divine doctrines 
above mentioned, men have come to consider 
pardon, and safety, and the hope, not very 
animated, of a future heaven, as the whole of 
salvation — all of it at least that is dispensed to 
us in this life — holiness and happiness, the 
blessed remainder, being to be waited for till 
we die. To the scriptural doctrine of imputed 
righteousness, by which we stand justified and 
sinless in the sight of God, has been joined, 
and in a manner confounded with it, an idea of 
imputed sanctification ; by which, without any 
change wrought in us, we become holy and 
prepared for bliss at the same moment that we 
are pardoned and justified in Christ — nothing 
more being to be done by us, or in us until the 
day of our removal hence ; thus denying alto- 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 13 

gether the idea of progressive sanctificationj or 
any sanctification at all, except as imputed to 
us from the perfect merits of our blessed Lord. 
If any of my readers who have examined these 
doctrines by the light of Scripture, seriously 
believe them, there are not wanting more 
powerful writers than I should be, whose argu- 
ments doubtless they have weighed. Contro- 
versy is not my design; but I know that for 
one person who has received this notion as an 
examined tenet of their faith, there are many 
with whom it is the unexamined and unsus- 
pected error of carelessness rather than of con- 
viction. These I would persuade, if possible, to 
consider their opinions. For I have observed 
the consequences of this base contentedness 
with an unhallowed and unhappy safety ; the 
half of what Christ has promised, and that 
not the better half, since if his mercy rested 
there it would be unavailing to us ; it would 
have remitted our misery without making us 
blessed ; it would have sent us from prison 
with our fetters on, and preferred us to a 
heaven that would not suit us when we come 
there: the little taste for that heaven evinced 
by persons in this condition, is a proof that it 
2 



14 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 

would not. From this low estimate of what 
salvation is, I have observed to result a life and 
conversation proportionately low; very little of 
enjoyment ; a stupid expectation, that scarcely 
ever warms into desire. Heaven's banquet is 
vainly spread before an appetite that longs not 
for it, because it has never tasted of its sweet- 
ness; there is no desire for the Bridegroom's 
coming, because there is no assimilation of 
character to make the blest companionship 
delightful. Christians know not themselves 
the cause of this unreadiness, though they are 
conscious of feeling it. They say that the love 
of life is natural, or that they cannot presume 
to be in haste, while perhaps they are not fit. 
But if, on this, you advise them to become 
more fit, by a closer walk with God, they recur 
to first principles — their fitness is of God — He 
has promised — justified in Christ, they know 
that they are saved. Most precious truths ! 
enough, one would think, to make us long after 
Him as the hart panteth for the water-brooks, 
and lose all care for what may intervene, in 
watchful expectation of his coming. But they 
have no such effect in this case : time loses 
little of its importance — earth but little of its 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 15 

influence. This is betrayed by a mode of 
talking which I think is not so good as it is 
common to good people — a sort of acquiescent 
self-reproach, which reconciles the mind to 
the shame it confesses and the falseness it 
laments, as if sin had lost its culpability and 
become a mere misfortune. I hear Christians 
express themselves after this manner : ^' We 
all forget God in the business of life — we 
prefer our own will to His' — we fear man more 
than God — we covet too ardently this world's 
good," and so on, as if there were no closer 
walk with God, no nearer resemblance to his 
image, than they have attained. And some- 
times I have observed they are not ph ased to 
be contradicted; they do not like to be told 
that all do not forget God, or prefer their own 
will to his, or care for the things of earth, to 
the degree in which they are content to do so — 
in short, that there is a higher and a holier 
walk, not only attainable, but which it is our 
indispensable duty to attain. If those to whom 
we so speak are high and self-confident spirits, 
they dislike and ridicule the holy pretension ; 
if they are meek and timid, they feel it a 
reproach, and are discouraged by the doubt it 



16 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE^ 

J ;ems to throw on the reality of their prin- 
ciples ; for I am not speaking now of persons 
whOj having not the principle, excuse sin 
because they love it, but of some who have truly 
found the Pearl of price, and would not, with 
all their faltering, part from it, to save the life 
they love too much, or buy the world they too 
much care for ; but from misapprehension of 
its use and beauty, they have laid it for safety 
in the casket when they should have hung it 
about their neck, the pride, the ornament, the 
joy of their existence. 

When man fell from his state of innocence 
in Eden, ^ve know not the extent of his for- 
feiture, we know not to what condition he 
would have attained, had he continued in obe- 
dience ; nor do we know what measure or what 
manner of bhss he parted from when he went 
out of paradise ; but we are told he was created 
in the image, and lived in the favour of God ; 
and when he sinned, he lost that image and 
he lost that favour. The death of Christ 
having repaired the injury that sin has done, 
and removed from his people all the curse and 
all the consequences of the fall, has placed 
them in a condition not worse, but better, than 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 17 

that in which Adam was created. For this, 
it is not enough that they be restored to the 
favour of God, pardoned, reconciled, received 
again, they must be restored to his image also ; 
else is their sentence not reversed, their ruin 
not retrieved. Is it not true, then, that they 
who rest satisfied with a bare and barren hope 
of being safe for eternity, by which little more 
is understood than safety from the punidiment 
of hell, do meanly estimate the Redeemer's 
work, accept but the half of what he has pur- 
chased, and wearily and unsafely postpone the 
other half, as something beyond our present 
reach. True, it is beyond our present reach in 
its ultimate perfection : holiness and happiness 
unalloj^ed are not the inhabitants of a still 
sinful bosom in a corrupted world. The sinless 
perfection of the divine Original cannot be 
copied entire till the spirit has put off mor- 
taUty. So are the depths of science beyond 
the reach of the young intellect in its first 
attempts to reach them. So are the trea-:ures 
of the earth beyond the reach of the miner 
when he begins to bore the surface. But is 
that a reason they should not begin ? Would 
they ever reach their end, if they waited till 
2* 



18 CHRIST OUR EXAMl^Lfi. 

it were at once within their grasp? Is it not 
rather true, that the sooner they begin, and 
the more hopefully they labour, the sooner will 
the one be learned and the other rich, and 
both be gratified with the possession that seemed 
at first so distant and impossible 1 Thus is it 
with the Redeemer's work ; holiness and happi^ 
ness — to be with him and to be like him — that 
blessed consummation of our desires is indeed 
beyond the grasp of sinful, sufl^ering humanity* 
Hope itself cannot compass it, for it knows not 
what it is : " We know not what we shall be.'* 
But we know that when he comes we shall 
be like him. From the moment that the 
favour of God is restored to us by the impart^ 
ing of the Holy Spirit, we are aw^akened to 
a new existence and a better principle. It 
becomes his task, it becomes ours, to retrace 
in our bosom his obliterated image ; to re- 
mould us into his hkeness ; to begin the change 
which can be perfected only in eternity. And 
let us not suppose it does not signify how 
fast or how slowly this change proceeds, so 
that it be accomplished in the end. Does it 
not signify that we forego for j^cars on years 
the measure of happiness within our reach? 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 19 

ihat we withhold from God the measure of 
glory which should be reflected from our 
"bosoms? Should we make so light of the 
•Saviour's gift as to be in no haste to enjoy it 
till we possess it all, if indeed we can possess 
■in eternity what we have made no progress 
towards in time? Those who think so must 
lake all the risk of the adventure ; I see no 
"security for them in the word of God ; I see 
'there, on the contrary, that growth, increase, 
^progression, are the terms in which the divine 
life is spoken of; " increasing in stature," 
■*^ growing into the likeness," " going on to 
perfection." Such figures and expressions do 
not characterize that sudden change at death 
which some rely on. The first sowing of the 
seed is a momentary act ; the putting in of the 
sickle is momentary also ; but it grows not in 
an hour, it ripens not in a day. Does the 
husbandman, when he comes into his field to 
reap, expect to find it as he left it when he 
sowed ? or when suns have shone on it in vain, 
and in vain the waters of heaven descended, 
will it start into perfection under the reaper's 
sickle ? These are Scripture figures, therefore 
I need not fear to speak unadvisedly. And 



20 CHRIST OUll EXAMPLE. 

when I look around ijpon those whom we 
behevej from an apparent change in their prin- 
ciples, to be the children of God, and see some 
advancing rapidly in the way of holiness, 
becoming more and more hke their Lord, and 
more conformed in all things to the Father's 
will, while others seem to rest where they 
began ; still conning their first principles ; 
wishing and hoping, but nothing the happier, 
nothing the holier for their hopes ; — when I 
consider this, and together with it those para- 
bles in which our Lord spake of an unequal 
distribution of rewards, by some measurement 
of previous service, I cannot divest myself 
of the thought, that the place of each one in 
the Redeemer's kingdom may depend upon the 
progress he has made in life ; I do not mean 
upon his works, what he has done — that is 
impossible, " for we are all unprofitable ser- 
vants," and can earn no preference ; but upon 
his character — what he is — his fitness to be 
employed in the higher offices of the kingdom, 
and to sit nearest to the King. I do not pretend 
to know by what rule these unequal honours 
will be distributed : '' there are la.^t that shall 
be first, and first that shall be last ;" but it 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 21 

seems certain that those will sit nearest to their 
Lord who shall be found most like him. 

Then if it is true that upon our progress in 
holiness depends possibly our place in the 
Redeemer's kingdom, certainly our happiness 
here, and the glory of God in us, the subject 
of this volume cannot be unimportant to the 
believer. The time is short — how short, God 
only knows — but short certainly ; our sun 
perhaps is already on the horizon ; or before 
it has reached the noon, some untimely blight- 
ing has chilled our frame, and left but little 
vigour for the task, which in our days of 
capability we have done so idly ; or if it is 
not so yet, it would be unwise to wait till it 
shall be ; — there are mornings of life which 
never have an evening. Shall we be content, 
when Jesus comes to take the lowest and the 
farthest seat, while some who in knowledge and 
profession seem below us now, " are bidden to 
go up higher ?" This is, indeed, to want am- 
bition such as saints may feel. But '' already 
is the kingdom of God within us :" the days 
are lost that we delay to claim its freedom 
iind to share its bliss. That heaven we antici- 
^pdLi^j is but the perfecting of a bliss begun ; 



22 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 

every step we advance in holiness brings us 
nearer to the enjoyment of it. If we have not 
tasted it, it is because we have not reached 
after it. We have gazed so long upon our own 
deformity, we have forgotten the beauty we 
are required to transcribe into our bosoms. 
We have become so low, so indolent, under 
the sense of our own weakness, we have for- 
gotten that in Jesus we have strength for every 
thing. 

How, then, is man to find out God ? Where 
are we to see, that we may copy it, the likeness 
in which we were created, and to which we are 
redeemed ? [n the abstract idea of God there 
is nothing that humanity can compass. His 
creative power, his all-disposing wisdom, his 
undeserved bounty, and resistless vengeance — 
these are all we know of God, and these we 
cannot imitate, for they are the attributes of 
Deity. But as God has manifested himself to 
us in the humanity of Jesus Christ, we have 
a perfect pattern, by which we may fully know 
w^hat he would have us to be. In proportion 
as we resemble this, we are holy in his. sight ; 
and in proportion as we are holy, we jevrjs 
happy. If it be but some liaint, impe^jf 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 23 

feature that we catch, graven by his Spirit on 
the heart, it will be great gain in our abundant 
wretchedness. But he has promised more, he 
has commanded more : and though of ourselves 
we can do nothing, we are to act as if we would 
do all. When the artist puts the pencil into 
the pupil's hand, and bids him copy what he 
sees, he knows he cannot do it, but he means 
to teach him. So, when our heavenly Father 
places himself in characters of humanity before 
ns, and bids us, " be holy as he is holy, and 
pure as he is pure," he knows we cannot, but 
he intends to lead us forward, by almost un- 
conscious steps, to the attainment of that which 
he requires. He sets before us the object of 
imitation, that, with eye intently fixed upon its 
beauty, we may love it more the longer we 
behold it, and grow insensibly to the likeness of 
what we love — still longing, still proceeding, 
but then only " satisfied, when we awake after 
his likeness." 



CHAPTER 11. 

IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 

" For 1 came from heaven not to do my own 
will, but the will of him that sent *?ie." — 
John vi. 38. 

No reasonable being acts without a motive. 
The veriest animal capable of choosing, is 
determined in his choice by something. It 
cannot be that man should live without an 
object to which his actions tend, in which his 
purposes terminate, which determines his path, 
and impels him forward in it. Without this 
momentum communicated from without, the 
rational, deliberative spirit could no more choose 
a course and follow it, than the dead masses 
of the material universe could find -themselves 



CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 25 

an orbit and maintain their motion in it, with- 
out the restraining force of gravitation. These 
inert bodies move as they are driven, and if 
some counter-influence supervene, they cannot 
choose but to leave their course and follow it. 
Man has a power of resistance, which these 
have not. He may choose, so to speak, the 
centre of his sphere : he may shun the influences 
which would withdraw him from it. He may 
strengthen by indulgence, or weaken by resist- 
ance, the motives that induce him to act, and 
determine his modes of acting. He may, 
by the deliberative will with which he is 
endowed, choose among the objects that are set 
before him, which he Vvill pursue, for what he 
will live, to what he will direct his aims. I 
know this may be disputed, and may even be 
metaphysically disproved. It may be said, 
that man cannot choose in opposition to his 
nature, the will itself being under the influence 
of his passions, tastes, and feelings. He cannot 
choose a good object while a bad one seems 
more desirable to him ; — he cannot prefer that 
which he does not love to that which possesses 
his affections ; — he cannot, by mere volition, 
desire what he would not have, nor please 
3 



S6 CHRISt OUR EXAMPLE 

himself with that which affords him no delight. 
This is true, and in this consists the moral 
inability of man, born in sin, and of his own 
nature loving itj to make a right choice between 
the good and evil that are set before him, to 
renounce the Vv'oiid he loves, and turn himself 
to the God he loves not. To do this would 
prove him wise^ whereas he is by nature foolish : 
— to do this would evince a correct judgment, 
whereas he is blind and perverted : — to do this 
would be to do the greatest good, whereas he 
is pronounced incapable of any good. This 
is scripturally and philosophically true ; and 
our nature must be changed, and our judgment 
must be enlightened, and the feelings and affec- 
tions of our hearts reversed, before man will 
make God his choice. 

It is impossible to reflect closely, and not 
be sensible of the difficulty into which this 
position brings us — a difficulty from which 
human reason, as I think, is totally unable to 
extricate us. This moral incapacity, so plainly 
declared in Scripture, and deducible from the 
very nature of things, if oiu- condition be such 
as the Scripture says it is, seems, by every 
process of reasoning to which it can be sub- 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 27 

j^ctedy to disprove our moral responsibility — so 
much of it, at least, as is involved in that bad 
preference, by which we remain separated from 
God, when means of reconciliation are proposed 
to us. It is argued, that if a man cannot 
prefer that good which is uncongenial witli his 
evil nature, and cannot of his own power 
change that nature, and leave the ways of 
death for the paths of everlasting life, why is 
he called upon to do so — why is he reproached 
for his resistance, and finally condemned for 
his refusal ? At this issue human reasoning 
must arrive, and human wisdom has nothing 
to reply. St. Paul himself, writing under the 
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, had nothing to 
reply. When he had brought his argument 
to this point, he could only say, " Nay, but O 
man ! who art thou that repliest against God V^ 
Much disputation would be spared, if men 
would cease the argument where St. Paul 
declined it — if they were not ashamed to own 
they do not understand, what the Spirit, speak- 
ing by the mouth of St. Paul, forbore to 
explain. It would be well if we did not defer 
to do that which is required of us, namely, to 
believe what the word of God declares, till w(^ 



28 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

can do that which is not required of us, namely, 
to reconcile its apparent inconsistencies. But 
against this submissiveness the pride of intellect 
revolts. Unable to reconcile the sovereignty 
of divine grace with the responsibility of man, 
they who see the former too plainly to reject 
it, by a very consistent train of reasoning make 
that which is not written the necessary sequence 
of that which is written. In doing so, they 
make void the half of Scripture ; that most 
abundant part of it which addresses man on his 
wilful rejection of the Gospel; and because 
they find it plainly written that " no man can 
come to Christ, except the Father draw him," 
they deprive of all meaning his tender remon- 
strance, " Ye will not come to me that ye 
might have hfe." Those, on the contrary, who 
cannot believe that the invitations of the Gospel 
are a mockery — that those commands, " Awake 
thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, 
and Christ shall give you light ;"* and those 
entreaties, " Turn ye, turn ye from your evil 
ways, for why will ye die ?"! and those 
reproaches, " Because I stretched out my hand 
and no man regarded ;"J have no more meaning, 
* Eph. V. 24. t Ezek. xxxiii. 11. i Prov. i. 24. 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 29 

US addressed to a man dead in trespasses and 
sins, than if directed to the cold carcass in the 
churchyard, reject the converse position, and 
maintain that man has some power of himself 
to help himself, as if it were not as plainly 
written, "That it is not of him that willeth, 
nor of him that runneth, but of God that 
sheweth mercy."* " Ye have not chosen me, 
but J have chosen you.^'f At one or other of 
these conclusions I believe we must arrive, by 
every train of consistent argument. But why 
should man argue when God has spoken? — 
why should finite reason, darkened by the fall, 
wonder at its own incapacity to comprehend 
what God has said ? He has declared both 
these things ; and difficult as they are to recon- 
cile in the abstract, they have never presented 
any practical difficulty to an honest mind. 
Every unsilenced conscience testifies of their 
truth ; every man born anew of the Spirit, 
who has turned from vanities to serve the living 
God, knows that he did not do it, and could 
not have done it, for himself; and every man 
that continues in sin, in defiance of the threats 
and promises of the gospel, knows that he does 

* Rom. ix. 16. t John xv. 16. 
3* 



30 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

it wilfully and of his own ungodly preference ; 
and both these truths will be testified to in 
heaven and hell to all eternity — in one, to the 
glory of God, and to the gratitude of the freely 
saved; in the other, to the endless misery of 
the self-destroyed. 

Man, then, is incapable as a rational being 
of living without an object ; and he is respon- 
sible as a moral being for choosing well among 
the many objects that are set before him. But 
what do men live for ? Some seem to live 
for nothing but to sin, and to accumulate upon 
themselves the debt of almighty vengeance, 
as if life were not long enough, without un- 
natural efforts, to earn eternal misery. They 
long for the morning to renew their work — 
they go abroad to find out where iniquity is 
doing — they return to pursue it in their secret 
chambers — they lie down at night full of con- 
trivings how to sin to-morrow. Miserable 
slaves ! they have indeed chosen an object, 
and, hardened as they are, they dare not accuse 
their Maker of their choice. If they cannot 
help it now, they remember when they could ; 
they are less deceived than many — they know 
their present wretchedness, and often, J believe, 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE, 31 

anticipate the issue. But all are not alike ; 
«there are men of this world very different from 
these, and yet I see not that they are any 
more like Christ. There are those whose only 
object in existence seems to he to do no harm. 
Entrusted all with some talents, most of them 
with many, they feel no responsibility but to 
keep them safe and innoxious ; they preserve 
their health by temperance, their property by 
prudence, and their character by propriety of 
conduct, and no man lays any thing to their 
charge. Harmlessness makes them objects of 
the world's indulgence ; not of its affection, for 
they do nothing to obtain it. They are not 
known to despise God^s laws, neither are they 
seen, to give him honour. They are not heard 
to deny Christ, nor to confess Him before men. 
What shall it be said these live for, with their 
harmless pleasure and their selfish pains? It 
might be for society ; but then they lose their 
purpose — the world itself gains nothing by 
them, and w^ould not miss them if they ceased 
to live. All they pretend to, is to do no harm. 
What an object for an immortal soul to choose, 
and yet they make some boa-t of it ! Was it 
for such a purpose God the Father created 



32 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE, 

and endowed them ? Do such pretend to anf 
hkeness to the Son of Gcd ? There is a 
portrait that resembles them now : *' Wherein 
have we robbed thee V^ &c.* and when that 
day, the day of the manifestation of the sons of 
God, shall come, they will be found in the 
hkeness of him who said to his Lord, ''There, 
thou hast that is thine." 

Need I name those whose only object in the 
world is to possess it ? If they are not many, 
they are enough for plain sense to w^onder 
at. These are they who join house to house, 
and field to field, but neither dwell in their 
houses, nor reap the harvest of their fields, 
the whole object of their existence being to 
accumulate wealth and honours, for years they 
do not live to see, and children that die before 
them. These have a likeness too, sketched 
by the pencil of Him, whom, I suppose, they 
do not pretend to resemble — " Thou fool, this 
night !" And there are those, whose only 
object in existence is to enjo}^ it ; and they are 
the greater part of all that dwell upon the 
earth. For it matters not what their enjoy- 
ments are — they may be vicious or they may 
• Mai. iii. 8. 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 33 

be only vain, or they may be very rational; 
they may be sometimes in opposition to the 
will of God, and sometimes in conformity vi^ith 
it; the object is the same, since there is no 
settled purpose to observe it or to slight it, and 
they are determined either by taste or habit, 
rather than by principle. While one seeks 
enjoyment in what is distinctively called 
pleasure, the '' lusts of the flesh, the lusts of 
the eye, and the pride of life ;" anoiher finds it 
in the legitimate comforts of domestic life, and 
a third in intellectual exercise and the pm'suits 
of science. I do not say there is no difference 
in the wisdom of their choice. The world has 
its wise ones as well as its foolish, though 
^ith God one term describes them: " For the 
wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." 
My argument is, that their object is the same, 
since it is no other than to enjoy life after their 
own manner. If they work, it is that they may 
enjoy the fruit of their labours ; if they study, 
it is that they may enjoy the benefits of know- 
ledge; if they mix with others, it is to enjoy 
society ; if they live apart, it is to enjoy them- 
selves. In few words, be their path of existence 
what it may, their object in it is to enjoy the 



34 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

most that circumstances will permit. It were a 
m.ockery to ask, if He who came into the world 
to suffer, lived for a purpose such as this 2 

I will suppose but one case more. I will 
suppose there may be those whose only object 
in existence is to do good, to benefit societ}^, to 
gratify their friends, to bless their famihes ; 
who cast into the treasury all that Providence 
has given them. Let them have their likeness 
in him of old who thus describes himself: 
" When the ear heard me, then it blessed me ; 
and w^hen the eye saw me, it gave witness to me. 
The blessings of him that was ready to perish 
came upon me, and I made the widow's heart 
to sing for joy." And if there are none over 
whom this philanthropy reigns entire, the single 
object that directs their course, we know there 
are many over whom it exercises a predominant 
influence, who live more for others than them, 
selves. They cannot be dissatisfied with the 
portrait ; let them compare it with the likeness 
of their Lord. 

I have drawn these characters distinct, but 
they are not really so. Most people are pur- 
suing more than one of the above-named 
objects — some are influenced by all of them ; I 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 35 

Speak therefore of the bearings of the human 
mind generally, rather than of individuals. 
Each one, by analysing his own mingled 
motives, may perceive which are, and which 
are not in unison with those of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. And let it not be thought that 1 con- 
demn as vicious, or reject as forbidden, every 
object which I show to be no part of his. This 
is beside the purpose ; we are examining our 
progress towards assimilation with our Lord. 
Our object may be very good, but if it was not 
Christ's object, it can form no feature of resem- 
blance. So far as it is good, it will stand 
among the many things which have " their 
reward." They who labour honestly to pos- 
sess, will have honest possession for their 
reward, and it is much ; they who seek know- 
ledge, will have the benefits of knowledge for 
their reward, and they are many ; — they who 
live for this world's love, w411 have*its love, the 
sweetest zest of time's transitory banquet ; and 
they who for its pleasures only, must take the 
value of them for their recompense. Christ 
wanted none of them, and he pursued *hem 
not. If we pursue them, as in subordination 
to higher aims we may, it must be for their 



36 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

own sake ; they cannot assimilate us to his 
character, nor bring us to a share in his reward. 
Let us have discarded from our bosom every 
sinful object ; let us find there none of the baser 
kind of selfish ones ; let our ends be honourable, 
generous, and good ; and if there be no object 
in our life besides, I say of the portrait, it may 
be very beautiful — it is very beautiful to human 
vision, but it is not like Christ. 

In his human existence Christ had a single 
object. If there were any subordinate on;:3, I 
do not perceive that they acted upon him inde- 
pendently of this. — When He assumed humani- 
ty, his own will and his Father's being one, 
it was his divine purpose to redeem the sons of 
men. instigated by his own eternal love and 
pity. But He does not give this as a reason 
for his coming. " I came down from heaven, 
not to do my own will, but the will of Him that 
sent me."* Through all his life we find the 
highest motives that could have acted upon his 
humanity, in like manner superseded and dis- 
placed. The mind of Jesus Christ was capable 
of being actuated by whatever motives naturally 
and sinlessly act upon our own ; but I do not 
^ John vi. 38. 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 37 

perceive any instance in which He follows so 
natural an impulse. The aims of ambition, the 
ends of avarice, the contrivances of pride, and 
the schemings of sinful passion, were excluded 
of course ; but neither does it appear in Scrip" 
ture, that He was ever determined in what He 
did by the legitimate desires of humanity. 
Had there been any motive in his hallowed 
bosom of sufficient power to move Him to action 
without reference to his Father's will, it must 
have been his benevolence, his tender pity for 
the children of men, the advancement of the 
gracious work of their salvation. Yet Jesus 
lived for thirty years inactive, unheard of, 
working probably for his daily bread. Did not 
compassion move Flim all that time ? Did He 
not feel the divinity within Him, and know his 
power to save? Doubtless his tender bosom 
throbbed through all those years to warn the 
perishing sinner of his doom and open the gates 
of mercy. Doubtless his compassionate eye 
looked on the sick and bereaved with as much 
pity then, as when He worked miracles to 
relieve them. But for thirty years — so we have 
reason to believe— Jesus preached no gospel, 
offered no mercy, healed no diseases; — and 
4 



38 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

why this loss of time and opportunity while men 
were perishing around Him ? Because He did 
not feel, or was not willing ? No ; but because 
his " hour was not yet come" — the hour ap- 
pointed of his Father. Jesus did not live to 
gratify his benevolence ; He did not act upon the 
impulse of mere humanity ; He did not speak by 
the dictation of his own best feelings : He lived, 
acted, and spoke for the acconaplishment of his 
Father's will, and therefore waited his appointed 
time. And when the time was come, and He 
commenced his spiritual mission as a preacher 
of righteousness, it does not appear that He ever 
consulted his own pleasure in calling a sinner 
from the error of his ways. Or why, when 
He could draw Simon from his honest labours, 
and Matthew from his nefarious gains, and the 
Magdalen from her unlawful courses, did He let 
the young man, whom when he saw he loved, 
go away sorrowful and unreclaimed ? We can 
understand no otherwise, than that Jesus knew 
for that time at least, it was not his Father's 
will that he should put forth his divine energies, 
to draw the rich man from his wealth. Jesus 
was subject to his parents, and obeyed them ; 
but, in this most common duty, there was some- 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 39 

thing beyond the motives by which the families 
of men are bound together ; beyond affection, 
dut^, or necessity : for when the moment came 
that the will of his heavenly Father assigned 
him business elsewhere, He left his parents to 
seek Him sorrowing, subjecting them to un- 
easiness on his account. Jesus had an animal 
existence to support — He ate, drank, slept as 
other men ; such was the will of God : but 
these necessities too were foregone, when the 
will of God required. He said, when he had 
fasted long, that " his meat and drink," that 
which superseded ail natural desires, was " to 
do his Father's will." And when it was his 
Father's will ihat he should suffer hunger, he 
refused th?e opportune persuasion of the tempter 
to work a miracle for his own relief. In his 
social kindness, in the temporal favours he con- 
ferred, I do not see that the desire — I will not 
say of glory and distinction, that were impos- 
sible — but the desire of human afTection, of 
human gratitude, the natural heart's best feel- 
ings^ was ever the motive of his actions. If 
Jesus had sought human approbation, or spoken 
or kept silence to conciliate the hearts of men, 
and deprecate their animosity. He needed not to 



40 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

have lived among them a wonder and an abhor- 
rence whilst he had all power to confer benefits 
and purchase favour. Evil he never did to 
any man ; but even good He did not indiscri- 
minately, and for his own holy delight therein, 
but simply when and because it was the Father's 
will. 

In his death was it not the same ? Mysteri- 
ous as it is, there was a m.oment when the 
will of the man Christ Jesus and the will of 
the Father were not one. His human nature 
shrunk from the task his Godhead had assumed, 
and having put to his lips that cup of bitter- 
ness He had voluntarily filled, He would at one 
moment have put it from Him, and desired, 
prayed that He might not drink it. What 
motive enabled Him to grasp that cup more 
firmly in his hand and drink it to the dregs ? 
" Yet not my will, but thine be done " In life, 
in death, it was the same. That the Scripture, 
God's revealed will, might be fulfilled, He kept 
silence before his accusers, and answered not 
a word. That the Scripture might be fulfilled, 
He complained of thirst upon the cross, and 
tasted of the vinegar and gall. Endowed with 
all power over men and devils, over the elements 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 41 

of nature, and the legions of heaven; power to 
keep his life, and to lay it down, and take it up 
again ; He never exercised his power but to 
fulfil the Scriptures and do his Father's will. 
For this He spake ; for this He kept silence J 
for this He went into the city; for this He 
withdrew into the wilderness. For this He hid 
Himself from death, while his hour was not 
yet come ; for this He exposed himself to it at 
the appointed time. Had Jesus not a single, 
undivided obje€t? 

I see no Hkeness of this in those advocates 
of a cold morality, who will hear nothing of 
Christ but his example. What have they lived 
for from their birth ? what do they live foj 
now 7 whose will do they consider in the 
morning, and accomplish till night-fall ? and in 
which of all their good deeds and their useful 
ones has the will of God been the predominant 
object ? They have lain down to rest, and 
risen up to play ; they have laboured to gain, 
and spent to enjoy — not as secondary objects to 
the great one first fulfilled. Jt has been the 
purpose and character of their existence to get 
the best, and enjoy the most, and abide the 
longest, that by any means they may, irre- 
4* 



42 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

spective of any wish to fulfil, in doing so, the 
purposes of God. And I see no likeness to it 
in the upright man, pursuing his earthly 
business, but not because God has ordained it ; 
conferring benefits on society, but not because 
God has required it; abstaining from profli- 
gacy, but not because God has forbidden it; 
moved by a thousand objects, not evil in them- 
selves, but never by the only one which moved 
our Lord. There are undertakings, even of 
piety and benevolence, in which, from the spirit 
in which they are carried on, and the feelings 
that attend their issue, it is evident that com- 
passion, or natural benevolence, have at least 
precedence of any desire to do the will of God. 
And there is often in the mind a general desire 
that the will of God be done, when He might 
watch in vain for a single demonstration, that 
we live, act, speak, enjoy, or suffer, with the 
simple design of doing it. 

These branches of the wild olive tree bear 
fruits — wholesome fruits, that have their value 
here ; but they are not those which grew upon 
the Stem on which the child of God is an 
ingrafted branch. Are such found anywhere ? 
I believe they are ; and I think they might be 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 43 

more, if they were more assiduously cultivated. 
That man, unchanged and unregenerate, should 
make the will of God the object of existence, 
is plainly impossible. God himself cannot 
enable him to do this, without first converting 
his aifections and his will. He and his Maker 
are not of a mind in any thing : therefore to 
seek the will of God would be to defeat his 
own purposes, to forego his enjoyments, and 
live in daily opposition to all he considers good« 
We can but entreat such an one to contrast his 
own motives and objects with those of the 
divine Being whose example he acknowledges. 
He must be converted, pardoned, born again of 
the Spirit, before we can exhort him to go on 
to perfection. He must receive the seed into 
his fallow before we can invite him to bring 
forth the fruit and reap the promised harvest. 
But with the child of God the case is otherwise. 
The renewed will is brought into unison with 
his Maker's. He loves what God loves ; ap- 
proves what God approves ; consents to his law 
that it is good, to his ways that they are wise, 
to his purposes that they are beneficent. From 
his heart he desires that God's will be done ; 
here there seems no impediment. Why should 



44 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

it be so difficult to live for that which we 
desire ? why impossible to make that the object 
of our actions which is already the object of our 
hopes and wishes ? 

I believe that a degree of conformity in this 
particular to the character of Christ, does take 
place in the bosom of every true Christian ; 
and while his onward actions appear to the 
world the same, the object of them is changed, 
to his own consciousness. St. Paul speaks of 
himself as having attained a large- measure of 
this conformity ; doubtless because he walked 
in the recent footsteps of his Lord, his example 
immediately before him. In the minutest, most 
earthly, most necessary acts, St. Paul declares 
he had but this one object : if he ate, it was to 
the Lord ; if he ate not, to the Lord he ate 
not : meaning, as I understand, that his inten- 
tion in either was to subserve the purposes of 
God. In every case he pleads this intention 
as the ground and justification of his conduct ; 
and pleads it so confidently, as to show he had 
no distrust of himself in this particular. I 
believe this desir'e to do the w^ill of God, is the 
first formed fruit of the divine life in the soul ; 
though it may be the last to ripen to perfection. 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 45 

We shall do well to look for it within us. If 
it is not there at all, we have little reason to be 
satisfied with our condition; the root that is 
not planted cannot grow. If we find it, but as 
a grain of mustard seed, mixed with a thousand 
other objects, we may look with encouragement 
for its increase ; but I think we must not rest 
satisfied, till it takes precedence of every other 
object, however useful and legitimate ; being 
destined ultimately to absorb them all. To 
every one of us naturally, the main object is to 
enjoy life, to preserve it, to provide for it, in 
some cases to endure it. The subordinate pur- 
poses through which this main one is pursued, 
are to please ourselves, to please others, to get, 
and perhaps to cause, for we will take nature 
at its best, as little evil and as much good as 
possible, irrespective of any intention to do the 
will of God. As soon as the divine life is 
begun in the soul by the renewing of the Holy 
Spirit, a new object of existence is perceived to 
take its turn, and mingle with these earthly 
ones ; subordinate perhaps at first ; honest, but 
not supreme, as it should be and is to be here- 
after. Take an instance. Let it be the parent 
going forth to his accustomed occupation, to 



46 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

which the greatest part of his time is devoted* 
If he be a mere worldly man, his object is to 
increase his means or to provide for his family. 
When his heart is in some measure with God, 
he considers, together with his natural desire, 
that he is fulfilling the appointment of Provi- 
dence, which requires every man to provide 
for his own, and do diligently the duties of his 
calling. But if he have indeed the mind of 
Christ, the will of God being his predominant 
object, however the outward action may be the 
same, the inward emotion will be very different 
— so different, they need not be mistaken by 
himself, and cannot be by him who reads the 
heart ; for then the labour will be willing, be it 
honourable or be it mean ; the gains will be 
enough, be they anything or nothing: ambition 
will not urge it, nor pride refuse it, nor earth- 
liness be disappointed in the issue. He gains 
at any rate his object ; he does the will of God, 
and the will of God determines the event. 
With higher objects and more generous aims, 
our benevolent and spiritual labours are capable 
of the same distinction, whether they be done 
f(Mr man or God — to accomplish our will or His, 
Sometimes we complain that we work in vain, 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 47 

or teach in vain, and have no success in our 
charitable labours ; yet if we began to work 
with the simple intention to subserve the will 
of God, we must attain our object, be the issue 
what it may. Thus every action of our lives, 
from the least to the greatest, is capable of 
being performed with different ends and aims ; 
and the likeness of the first Adam is, in this 
particular, capable of being transformed into 
the likeness of the second Adam, the world 
being scarcely cognizant of any change. These 
are the secret things of a man, of which God 
reserves the judgment to Himself. Two may 
meet in the same market-place, and transact 
business with the same prudence and honour ; 
while one refers all to the will of God, and the 
other thinks not of God at all. Two may sit 
at the same domestic board, sharing alike its 
legitimate enjoyments ; while one is living to 
God, the other for himself and his family. The 
world asks where is the difference, and we can- 
not show it them, for it is spiritually discerned. 
But God knows the difference ; and we may 
each one know it for ourselves. The man of 
the world may know the difference if he will ; 
he may look into his heart, and see that there 



48 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

is no such motive there ; he may ransack the 
secret chambers of his bosom, and among the 
crowd of objects that keep him in a hurry of 
pursuit, he will fail to find this one. And if 
he cannot look into other hearts to see who has 
the principle, he has not ; and if he will not 
take the living testimony of any who profess it, 
he may at least search the Scripture, and com- 
pare his own mind with the mind of Christ 
and the testimony of departed saints. The 
man of God does know the difference, for he 
feels that the will of his heavenly Father has 
become to him an object of the deepest interest 
and desire ; prompt to recur, if at times over- 
borne and forgotten; quick to be recalled, if 
banished by the occupations of the day; sen- 
sibly desired, while inadequately pursued?; 
increasing in magnitude as the divine life 
advances ; gradually gaining upon the dimi- 
nishing interests of this world ; consented to, 
delighted in, as that which is ultimately to 
absorb them all. Perhaps he remembers when it 
was not so, and can trace in the gradual change 
of motives a growing conformity to the character 
of his Lord. And why should it not grow on to 
perfect Ukeness ? He performs, as other men, 



IN THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 49 

the necessary functions of existence — so did his 
Master. He fulfils the various duties of his 
station, in the common occupations of life — so 
did Jesus. He maintains his place in society" 
by honourable exertion — so it is probable that 
Jesus did. There is no incompatibility in this. 
It is, in fact, no question of doing or not 
doing ; it is the why^ not the ivJiat, of human 
action. The servant of Christ may leave things 
undone for the same reason that his Master 
did them ; or do what his Master did not, for 
the same reason that he did it not, to meet the 
purposes of God with a single desire to do his 
will. Christ knew perfectly that will, and 
could not mistake in doing it — man knows it 
imperfectly, and mistakes continually. Christ 
had all power to perform, as well as wisdom to 
discern ; man has no power of his own, though 
he may draw out of Christ's fulness both wis- 
dom to perceive and power to do. Herein is 
the difference. The resemblance is in the 
wish, the choice, the purpose. Can it be so 
very difficult to discover what these are ? 



CHAPTER IIL 

IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 

" How readest thou ?" — Luke x. 26, 

There is no doctrine of the gospel so much 
resisted by the natural mind unenlightened by 
the Spirit, as that of the utter corruption of 
human nature, and its total alienation from all 
goodness. Man's pride refuses the imputation, 
and he thinks his experience refutes it. In 
vain the testimony of Scripture is made plain 
before him. wherein He who knows the heart 
of man declares it. " God looked ui)on the 
earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh 
had corrupted his way upon the earth. Every 
imat^ination of the thoughts of his heart was 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 51 

only evil continually."* This was what God 
saw when He determined in his anger to destroy 
him. And when he looked again and deter- 
mined not to destroy him any more, what He 
saw was still the same : " For the imagination 
of man's heart is evil from his youth.^'l He 
found neither judgments nor mercies could 
amend him : " For who can bring a clean thing 
out of an unclean ? Not one ;"J not God him- 
self till he has cleansed it. The briar by longer 
growing would not bring forth grapes ; no, 
though he had digged about it and fenced it. 
" And what could hav.e been done more for it 
that He had not done," when again "He looked 
down from heaven upon the children of men to 
see if there were any that did understand, that 
did seek God '?" Every one of them is gone 
back, they are altogether become filthy, there 
is none that doeth good, no not one."§ Had 
there indeed been any germ of good in man, it 
must have shown itself under such a culture ; 
in immediate comimuni cation with the Deity; 
under his miraculous guidance ; taught by Him 
and chastened by Him every day : with all his 
goodness and all his vengeance made to pass 
*Gea. vi. t lb. viii, |Jobxiv, J Ps.Iiii 



52 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

before him. But they wore out his vengeance, 
as they wore out his love, till He exclaims, 
^^ And why should ye be stricken any more? 
je will revolt more and more ; the whole head 
is sick, and the whole heart is faint ; from the 
sole of the foot even to the head, there is no 
soundness in it."* Was the Almighty mis- 
taken in his choice, unfortunate in the selection 
of a specimen to try the value of the mass ? 
Not so. "I knew that thou wouldest deal very 
treacherously, for thou w^ast called a trans- 
gressor from the womb ;'^ " but thou knewest 
not." I Man did not know the extent of his 
corruption, and nothing could be more calcu- 
lated to manifest it than the trial of our nature 
tinder circumstances so favourable, it would 
seem perversity itself could scarcely have 
resisted them. But man did resist them ; and 
the prophet of Israel, for himself and his 
people, and the church that should come after 
him for ever, thus confesses : " We are all as 
an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses 
are as filthy rags ; and we all do fade as a leaf, 
and our iniquities like the wind have taken us 
^way."J And a later prophet thus confirms 
* Isa. i, t lb. :tlviii. l lb. Ixir. 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 63 

Jiis word : '' The heart of man is deceitful 
above all things and desperately wicked."* 
Lest it should be thought that there is any 
change, the Holy Spirit repeats again by St. 
Paul his word immutable : " There is none 
righteous, no not one ; there is none that under- 
standeth, there is none that seeketh after God ; 
they are all gone out of the way, they are 
together become unprofitable, there is none that 
doeth good, no not one."| And lest they 
whom grace had changed into another state of 
being, should forget their assimilation to the 
corrupted mass of nature, he thus addresses 
them : " You hath he quickened who were 
dead in trespasses and sins, and were by natnre 
the children of wrath even as others." J 

To this continuous testimony of the unerring 
word of God, the word of every true church 
has been added — of none more than decisively 
our own. In every service we are made to say 
that there is no health in us. We appeal to 
God's omniscience, that we can of ourselves do 
no good thing ; that we are unable to think 
a good thought. But it is all in vain ; no 
natural man believes it ; he appeals against it 
^ Jer. xvii. t Rom. iii, t Eph. ii. 

6* 



54 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

to his own reason and his own experience, and 

thinks they are on his side. It has been so 

from the beginning. Cain thought he conld 

offer something acceptable to God, without 

having recourse to the appointed sacrifice ; and 

Cain thought he had reason on his side, for the 

fruits of his fields, the produce of his own 

labour, seemed quite as reasonable an offering 

as the slain beast. The king of Israel had 

reason on his side when he spared what seemed 

to him the good things of the Amalekite, the 

unoffending kine, to be offered in sacrifice to 

the Lord ; and I suppose the pharisee, with his 

tithing and his morality, had reason too when 

he preferred himself to the degraded publican. 

But the judgment of God was against them ; 

they reasoned — but He had spoken. And this 

men have been doing ever since, and are doing 

now. God says, " There is no good in them ;" 

they say there is a little — a very little — but 

still a little. He says, " Without money and 

without price ;" they say, ''We cannot purchase' 

truly, but still we will bring something." He 

eays, "When they had nothing to pay;" they 

say, " We have not indeed enough to pay our 

debt, but we will bring a present in our hands.'^ 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 55 

Heathens, more excusable because they had not 
heard, anxious to find something acceptable to 
their gods, gave their children to the fire, and 
their bodies to the crushing of their chariot- 
wheels. Papists, in mingled light and dark- 
ness, sought merit in supererogatory works, 
fantastic self-inflictions, and unnatural fervours. 
And now, with light increased, but not enough 
to see by, Protestants look for their goodness 
in the secrecy of their hearts, in their virtues 
and well-meanings ; or they present God w^ith 
their baptism, their churchmanship, or their 
alms-deeds. And it is still reason and experi- 
ence that are made to oppose themselves to the 
acceptance of the truth. 

It is deeply interesting, though very painful, 
to meet an amiable and upright man of the 
world upon this ground. He knows that he 
feels something he is accustomed to call virtue, 
and that he loves something he is accustomed 
to call goodness. He feels incapable of the 
vices he sees committed around him. He com- 
pares his own upright, honourable, and it may 
be generous purposes, with the sordid vicious- 
ness of other men. There is a warmth of 
indignation in his bosom against injustice and 



66 CHRIST OUk E^CAMPLE 

oppression, which he takes for a hatred of* 
iniquity ; whilst his admiration of every gene* 
rous and noble action seems as if it could be 
nothing else than an innate love of holiness* 
Comparing themselves by themselves, and 
measuring themselves among themselves, it is 
evident that all are not alike ; the world has its 
good men and its bad ones, its honourable and 
dishonourable, its base and its noble : subjects 
of the prince of this world notwithstanding. 
It is in vain that God has included all men 
under sin, and said there is no difference ; the 
upright man of the world sees and feels there 
is a difference, and he thanks God in his heart 
he is not like other men. He appeals to reason 
and to fact. Now if it were true that reason 
and experience are opposed to the word of God. 
that word must be true notwithstanding. But 
in fact, though his word may contain many 
things too great to be compassed by the former, 
and too deep to be sounded by the latter, there 
can be no real inconsistency between them. 
We call the ocean bottomless because our lines 
are not long enough to fathom it ; we call the 
stars of heaven numberless because we cannot 
count them. But in these things we are too 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 57 

wise to believe our senses or be deceived by our 
incapacity. The light of science has undeceived 
us, while the evidence of our senses remains the 
same. So does the light of divine grace unde- 
ceive us with respect to the state of onr hearts 
before God, though the shades and differences 
of human character remain still visible. 

One principal cause of difficulty in the recep- 
tion of this truth is, that men think of sin as a 
succession of separate acts, rather than as a 
principle of action : of holiness as the adopting 
of certain maxims, rather than a state of being. 
A man may deal fairly to-day, and fraudulently 
to-morrow ; nay, he may, at the same moment? 
give the boon of charity with one hand, and 
grasp the wages of iniquity with the other ; 
but he cannot be at the same time righteous 
and unrighteous: he cannot be at once an 
honest and # dishonest man. We do not say 
that a natural man never does right, never acts 
properly, nor feels justly; but we say of his 
actions, the best and the worst, that they flow 
from a principle of earthliness, self-interest, and 
expediency, not from love of God, or love of 
holiness ; they flow from the same principle 
that v/ould have induced him, had it seemed 



58 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

desirable, and expedient, or to his interest* 
to do the exact contrary. In the words of our 
church we say of such good actions, " For that 
they are not done as God hath willed and 
commanded thern to be done, we doubt not, 
but they have the nature of sin." And if the 
fairest of the fruit be sin, shall we venture to 
say there is goodness in the root ? Men love 
certain demonstrations of goodness which are 
well accepted in society, and they love some 
sins for the same reason : this is not to love 
goodness. They love some features of a holy 
character that commend themselves to their 
natural taste, but they hate others that are 
equally beautiful in the sight of God ; this is 
not to love holiness. The natural man does 
not love either. When he beheld the only 
perfect personification of them in characters of 
humanity, there was no beauty in Him that 
they should desire Him ; and when they see 
the nearest assimilation to it that is to be found 
among men, they do not like it still. " If ye 
were of the world/' our Saviour says, *' the 
world would love its own :" not for their good- 
ness — '' but because I have chosen you out of 
the world, therefore the world hateth you :" 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 59 

not for their unworthiness — " Whom God choos- 
eth, he also sanctifieth," and these are they 
whom the world does not love. 

At least, then, God and man are not agreed 
upon the characters of that goodness and holi- 
ness they approve : which discloses another and 
very powerful cause of the difficulty presented 
to the natural mind by the doctrine of man's 
utter corruption; a cause more particularly 
connected with our presented subject. Man^s 
notions of goodness are not derived from the 
Scripture ; they do not in many respects con- 
sist with it : so that while they cherish in them- 
selves and admire in others, something they 
take for virtue, it is not the righteousness of 
God. The world, as distinguished from the 
people of God, is called in Scripture, " A king- 
dom, the kingdoms of this world," as distin- 
guished from " The kingdom of God." Now, 
a kingdom has not only a separate king ; it has 
laws, administrations, and sanctions, distinc- 
tively its own. Its judicature takes no cogni- 
zance of the transgression of the laws of other 
nations. A man lives justified and free, if only 
his conduct be conformed to the legislative code 
under which he lives. How true is this of the 



€0 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

kingdom of this world, as alienated from the-^ 
government of God. It has its right and wrong, 
its good and evil, and does not inquire and does 
not care, whether they are in conformity with 
the divine law. They may agree, or they may 
not ; for the most part they do not ; it does not 
signify, for it is not by this that any man's 
goodness is tried before the world's tribunal;, 
and till grace has changed his heart, and trans- 
ferred his allegiance, it is not by this that any 
man tries his own. What w^onder if he stand- 
justified and approved before himself and the 
world, while before God he stands utterly 
condemned ? The word of God is not his rule 
of life. 

But the word of God was the only rule of 
life to our Lord Jesus Christ. We might have 
expected it otherwise. One with the Father, 
sharer in his counsels from the beginning, 
knowing in all things his mind and will, the 
Son could have no occasion for the written law. 
His own wisdom and holiness were his sufficient 
rule. But it became Him, in taking upon Him 
the nature of man, to fulfil all righteousness, 
not after the secret counsels of his omniscience, 
but accordin'ir to the rule laid down for us. It 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 61 

was not the least part of his hunliliation, that 
He who was the Lawgiver of the universe, the 
eternal arbitrator of right and wrong, himself 
learned obedience to a strict and narrow rule, 
and condescended to refer to its decisions every 
action of his life. And not the least proof of 
man's unlikeness to Him, is that spirit of insub- 
missioh, which revolts against all authority, as 
if every restraint upon action or opinion were 
degrading to a thinking being, an encroachment 
on his independence. It is extremely important 
that we study our Lord's character in this 
respect; for it is a point on which we make 
great mistakes- The only man capable of 
judging for himself, beyond the possibility of 
erroi* was the man Christ Jesus : and yet it is 
apparent that He never did judge for himself in 
any instance, irrespectively of God's revealed 
word. I say his revealed word, the letter of 
his law; for I recollect no instance in which 
Christ appeals to the secret purposes of God 
in explanation of his conduct, perfectly as thsy 
must have been known to Him. He did in- 
deed, in his character of prophet and teacher, 
become himself the revealer of God's will to 
man, the propounder of the things that were 
6 



62 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

to come : but to explain 'and justify his words 
and actions, " It has been written," is the 
only argument I find him to have used. 
Painfully foreboding the defection of his com-* 
panions, Jesus does not appeal to his divine 
prescience for the fact, but to the fore-written 
word of God, " For it is written, I will smite 
the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered."* 
When about to go up to Jerusalem for the con- 
summation of his work, He does not say, " To 
accomplish what was decreed in the counsels of 
the eternal Three before the world began," but 
simply, *' That all things written by the 
prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be 
accomplished."'}" When with judicial violence, 
He drove the money-chano^ers from the temple, 
He adduces the written word alone for his 
authority, not his own right as lord and master 
of the temple: ''It is written, My house shall 
be called the house of prayer." Again, when 
his disciples are impeached for the transgres- 
sion of the sabbath-day, He, the only good, 
the only perfect, the one Example, stooped to 
defend them on the example of another record- 
ed in holy writ, ''Hast thou not heard what 
* Mark xiv. 27. t Luke xviii 31. 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 63 

David did? ^fec"* When practical questions 
were proposed for his decision, his answer was 
still, " How readest thou ? What say the 
Scriptures ?" Then came the hour of tempta- 
tion ! With what weapons did the Son of God 
defend himself against the assaults of Satan? 
Not with appeals to what the adversary might 
well have understood, his own eternal Godhead, 
the immutable purpose of his Deity, and his 
omniscient penetration into the base design. 
He answers with nothing but the plain word of 
God, " It is written," as if that were his only 
guide. 

I have said, that as prophet and teacher He 
was himself the revealer of God's will to man ; 
but examining his words more closely, I per- 
ceive that even in these characters Jesus rather 
expounded the word than added to it, rather 
elucidated former prophecies than uttered new 
ones. For in presenting himself as teacher of 
the people,^ the whole of his discourse is an 
exposition of the Scripture ; and in assuming 
the character of prophet, J to make known the 
things that were to come, it is by no new pre- 
diction, but simply this : " For these be the 

* Mark xi. 17. t Mark iv. 17. t Luke xxi» 



64 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

days of vengeance, that all things which are 
written may be fulfilled." And what appears 
to me still more remarkable, is his last inter- 
view with his disciples, when about to return 
to his Father. He might have disclosed to 
them the state of the departed, the secrets of 
the grave, and the Hades He had visited. 
In the plentitude of recent experience, how 
likely that He should drop, at parting, some 
intimation of the things unseen, beyond what 
is given to other men to know! And yet he 
did not: all He did was this, "He opened 
their understanding, that they might under- 
stand the Scriptures." 

Two wonders fill the mind in the contempla- 
tion of these things. That He, the source of 
all wisdom and knowledge, the originator of all 
law, and root of all authority, should submit 
himself to the decision of a written rule : that 
man, so ignorant, so fallible, so perverted, 
should think it significant of intellectual great- 
ness, to subject that very rule to his own 
judgment and experience. This is done con- 
tinually ; so continually, so habitually, that, as 
in all things to which we are habituated, we 
are often unconscious of the process. But every 



m 'The rule or life. 65 

man may perceive, if he will but examine his 
own mind, to what extent he daily abrogates 
the written word, to substitute his own ideas 
in its stead, and justifies himself in doing so. 
Let the upright candid man, formed on the 
best model of this world's excellence, place 
himself for a moment by the side of this picture, 
and by the light of his ov/n consciousness com- 
pare himself with this divine Example. His 
spirit when he rises, is full of the " why^^ and 
the ^^whaf^ and the ^^ ivkereivithaF — business, 
possessions, pleasures, this world's past, and 
this world's future. For a few minutes, if he 
can, he forces these things from his thoughts, 
that he may turn them to- God in prayer, 
perhaps in the reading of his word. But these 
are invited guests, the others are the inmates 
of his bosom. And if in that sacred word he 
reads, "Seek first the kingdom of God and 
his righteousness ; labour not for the meat 
that perisheth, &c.," conviction does not seize 
his mind, that he is in a forbidden state, a state 
of reprehension. He does not fall down before 
God, and say, '' My soul cleave th to the dust, 
quicken thou me in thy way." He sees nothing 
more reasonable than that his mind should 
6* 



66 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

be thus occupied with the things that imme- 
diately concern him — nothing more important 
than to answer the demands of this Ufe. The 
word of God says otherwise, and condemns 
those who have not God in all their thoughts. 
But this is mere enthusiasm to him ; it is even 
better to fulfil his practical and social duties. 
And notwithstanding what he has been reading, 
he goes forth with a peaceful conscience, and 
erected brow, as if he had nothing to be 
ashamed of before God or man. The word of 
God is not the rule by which he judges of his 
state. 

Is it that to which he forms his conduct? 
His morning business — that is conformed to 
the common rules of business, with frequent 
disguises, frequent evasions of the truth, fre- 
quent transgressions of God's commandments. 
His evening pleasures — they are made up of 
the proscribed pomps and vanities of a wicked 
world, enjoyed in the company of the . un- 
godly; often promoted by others' sins if not 
his own ; involving frequent misuse of the gifts 
of Providence, and certain forgetfulness of the 
Giver. If it were said to such an one, " Your 
statements are not correct, your transactions 



IN TIIK RULE OF LIFE. 67 

are not just," he would admit it ; but it is the 
custom, it cannot be dispensed with. " Tliose 
people jou passed your time with, are profane 
and ungodly :'' it is true ; but they are such 
company as becomes my station. " The waste- 
ful excesses of your banqueting is a perversion 
of God's gifts :" it is so; but it is the habit 
of polite society, "• That theatre, that race, 
those games of chance — the zest in all of them 
is the excitement of ungodly passions: they 
draw thousands into sin and misery, and lead 
them to perdition :" it may be so ; but they are 
rational amusements notwithstanding. Take 
then the holy volume in your hand, and froi;n 
its hallowed pages read, "Be not conformed 
to this world ;" " Come out from among them 
and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean 
thing;" " Know ye not that the friendship 
of the world is enmity with God '?" *' Be 
ye not therefore partakers with them; for the 
fruit of the Spirit is in all righteousness and 
truth, proving what is acceptable unto the 
Lord; and have no fellowship with the un- 
fruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove 
them ;" " Come out from her, my people, that 
you be not partaker of her sins, and that ye 



68 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

receive not of her plagues." Does he shrink 
before this judgment of the written word, and 
say, '' Behold I have sinned?" No: he smiles 
at such precision; it is very well for those that 
think so; a httle pharisaical, however, ^and 
withal ostentatious ; and he raises his head 
the higher, in conscious freedom from such 
narrowing prejudice. The word of God is not 
the rule by which he judges of his actions. 

Is it the rule of his rehgion ? It is written, 
" I am the way, the truth, and the life : no 
man cometh to the Father but by me."* 
" Except a man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God."| " There is no other 
name under heaven given among men, wdiere- 
by we must be saved. "J " Whosoever trans- 
gress 3th, and abideth not in the doctrine of 
Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the 
doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and 
the Son. If there come any unto you, and 
bring not this doctrine, receive him not into 
your house, nor bid him God speed ; for he 
that biddeth him God speed is partaker of 
his evil deeds. "§ This and much more is 
written — a whole volume is written with the 

*Johniv. 6. tib.iii. 3. tActsiv. 12. »52 John 9, 10, 11. 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 69 

pen of inspiration, to show that there is but 
one religion, but one Saviour, but one way of 
salvation, one truth, one gospel, for all to 
whom it is sent. Is this the religion of the 
world's good man? Is it that on which he 
frames his prayers, and builds his eternal hopes, 
and walks so confidently towards his end ? He 
knows and God know^s. We cannot read his 
heart, but such is not the language of his lips. 
He calls it prejudice and narrow-mindedness : 
if he denies not this one way of salvation, he 
at least knows many other ways ; so confidently 
speaks he of the state of those who never 
walked in this. The religion of his teachers, 
his friends, and most probably his own, is not 
the religion of the gospel ; but they are very 
religious notwithstanding ; and those who doubt 
it, manifest as he thinks, a most harsh, un- 
generous judgment; as if one set of people, 
and one set of opinions only, could be accept- 
able to God. Yet Christ has said it, and the 
Holy Spirit has said it, and all who have 
written under his inspiration have said it too. 
Of him who denies it, what can we say, but 
that the word of God is not the rule by which 
he regulates his own principles, and measures 



70 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

the principles of others. And what is the 
standard that is taken instead'? The same 
it has been from the beginning — reason tradi- 
tion, the authority of his fathers, and the 
maxims of society. To the natural man it 
seems so improbable the path of life should 
be a narrow one; so very unlikely, a few- 
persons only, and they not seemingly the best, 
should be walking in light, while the multitude 
sit in darkness : it is in vain, the Scripture 
says it is so. The best men that live, and the 
best men that have died, think and act differ- 
ently : and it appears so much more consonant 
with human reason, and divine legislation, 
that each man, walking uprightly according 
to his conscience, should be justified in the 
religion he professes, the natural man entirely 
disregards what the Scripture says of those, 
who, going about to establish their ow^n right- 
eousness, refuse to submit themselves to the 
righteousness of God. 

What a contrast does such a character pre- 
sent to the image of our Lord ! Can a man 
thus acting, thus thinking, be so dekided as to 
suppose he is walking in Jesus' footsteps ; in 
this who never acted, never spoke, but with the 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 71 

word of God in his moutli, and its rule in his 
heart ; who, Deity as He was, never reasoned 
when his Father had spoken ? In his own 
beautiful discourse on the mount, He himself 
drew the contrast between the laws of the 
world and the laws of his Father, the authori- 
ty of men and the authority of God. Throw- 
ing spiritual light on the written law, speaking 
in the name of his Father, " The word which 
ye hear is not mine, but the Father^s which 
sent me," how does his immutable '' 1 smf* 
stand for ever opposed to the '' It has been 
said^^ and '' Ye have heardj^^ of this world's 
reasonings and conclusions. 

Is it not strange, that in the face of such an 
Example, any one who professes to admit its 
divinity, or even its moral perfectness, should 
conceive that they evidence an acuter intellect 
and a nobler spirit, by what is called inde- 
pendence of opinion and thinking for them- 
selves !■ Man has no right to an independent 
opinion on any subject whatever, unless it be 
one on which the Scripture has not spoken, or 
has spoken so obscurely as to leave a reasonable 
doubt of the meaning of the words ; and then 
only as to what is said, never whether what is 



72 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

said is meant. It is of course, that God not 
only expressed his real meaning, but that He 
chose the most accurate language to express 
it in. And whoever forms an opinion in oppo- 
sition to the plain meaning of the words, does 
virtually either deny the Bible to be the word 
of God, or exalts his own judgment above the 
judgment of his Maker. Would that men 
could be persuaded to consider how many times 
a day they do this, in thought, in word, in 
deed, and proudly justify themselves in doing 
so. " A man who thinks for himself," is a 
term of commendation in society. " He has 
a great mind, he will think for himself,'' as 
if the terms were synonymous. Well, if it 
meant only an independence of man^s judg- 
ment ; or perhaps not always well then ; for 
the opinions of men, if they be men of God, 
may be of value as derived from Him: and 
the opinions of the church, if it be the church 
of Christ, should be the echo of his own ; to 
be subjected, however, to the test of Scripture. 
But this it does not mean. There are so few 
things upon which God has" not spoken, except 
in the fields of science. There man may revel 
harmlessly in the plenitude of his own wisdom. 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 73 

provided he touch not the plain meaning of 
the written word; — but in respect of character, 
and conduct, and principles, and all the rela- 
tions of man to man, to his Creator and him- 
self, there is nothing of which God has not 
spoken ; and man cannot and must not think 
upon them independently. Christ did not ; 
angels in heaven do not. Perhaps they do in 
hell, for in Satan's kingdom independence has 
ever been a boast and a distinction ; whether 
a reality, I leave the boasters to decide. They, 
who like some of old indignantly exclaim, 
"We were never in bondage to any one: who 
are determined to serve God according to their 
conscience, to follow the dictates of their own 
understanding, and go to heaven their own way, 
know best whether they be free indeed, or in sub- 
jection to another master. They who dare com- 
mit sin in defiance of their Maker, know whether 
they dare abstain from it, in defiance of the 
world. They whose discretion judges of the 
fitness of God's commands, know whether they 
dare observe them against the most minute re- 
quirements of this world's fashions and opinions. 
It is a miserable fiction. " His servants ye are 
to whom ye obey," but independent you are not.* 
1 



74 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

Only resist the yoke that is upon you, and you 
will find how strong it is. Struggle to free your- 
self from the chains that bind your conscience, 
and you will know presently how tight they 
are. You have walked according to the course 
of this world, despising the narrowness of those 
who form their sentiment upon the letter of 
Scripture, and calling yourselves liberal and 
independent. Make a new experiment ; con- 
form yourselves to the righteousness of God, 
and justify yourselves by the word of God, 
you know you must not, you dare not. Make 
but the effort, and you will instantly feel the 
galling of the yoke that is upon you. Have 
you not already felt it often] If you have 
never wished to give yourselves to God entirely, 
have you not wished, under some good im- 
pression, some stirring of natural conscience, 
to do something, or abstain from something 
in deference to the divine will, but could not 
for fear of the world's censure ? While reading 
the Bible, or listening to the preacher, or 
discoursing with a pious friend, you have felt 
conviction stealing upon your mind ; your 
understanding was about to yield ; ,but you 
called to mind the opinions of others, the 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 75 

learned, the influential, perhaps the loved of 
this world — you could not differ from them ; 
jour very opinions are enslaved. And that 
word of God, so frequently made use of to 
point a jest, or embellish a sentence — would 
you venture in the same company to produce 
it as an authority? Need I tell you, Jesus 
not only acted on it, but scarcely ever spoke 
without producing it, and never justified him- 
self by any other rule ? 

" The children of this world are wiser in 
their generation than the children of light." 
They have a king, a code, a legislation of their 
own, and are generally content to abide by their 
decisions. In the kingdom of Christ, insub- 
mission to the plain letter of Scripture, a wish 
to look into the secret purposes of God, and 
" to be w^ise above what is written," has at all 
times in some measure, -and at this time in par- 
ticular, distracted the church, and tainted the 
simplicity of divine truth. So much of corrupted 
nature is there in us^ men will even here be 
thinking for themselves, and call their views 
deep, enlarged. These biblical freethinkers 
take the word of God for their rule, but then 
it is in a different sense — in any sense they do 



76 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

not much care what, so it be but different from 
that in which any simple mind w^ould under- 
stand it. I beUeve this disposition to be the 
chief source of the divisions and extravagances 
that now disgrace the church. That bibhcal 
criticis-m, as exercised by the really studious, 
has thrown light on passages of holy writ, 
obscured by change of time^ and difficulty of 
language ; that the deep experience of the 
really devout has done still more to explain 
those passages which are mysterious only till 
they are realised in the hearty it is not possible 
to doubt; and assuredly God intended we 
should thus impart to others the benefit of 
such light as He may give to each. But it 
does appear to me that those who talk most 
of deep views, and large views, and do cer- 
tainly most excel in new views, are different 
persons from those who, by study or experi- 
ence, have really sounded the depths of divine 
knowledge. These last have been men of close 
application, and laborious research, whom the 
world heard little of, but by the matured and 
long digested product of their labours. Or 
they have been men, who under severe trial 
of their faith, in close intercourse with Deity, 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 77 

and devoted administration to the secret mind 
of others, have obtained a peculiar insight into 
the language of the Holy Spirit, and tried the 
value of their ore in many a fire before they 
produced it to the world. These v^ere men 
who spent their hves in kindling some small 
taper, for such it was, in comparison with 
the light of Revelation, and left it burning on 
their tombs. They were not the yoimg, the 
loudj the popular, who blazon the day with 
torches to find out something new, and discover 
the secrets of the Lord ; finding every day a 
fresh pearl, for which they are willing to sell all 
they had before, and this too, when they can find 
another. They were not critics who produce fresh 
readings every year, commentators who find an 
altered sense at every re-perusal of the word ; 
and give to the public, not the matured result of 
patient study, but every crude notion as it arises. 
Such critics have made intellect seem the enemy 
of truth, which God could never mean it should 
be. He foresaw, indeed, that it would become 
so. He knew how powerful an instrument 
in Satan's hand would be the reasoning, ques- 
tioning pride of man, when induced to array 
itself against the reception of the word. When 
7* 



78 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

He determined to reveal to babes what was 
hidden from the wise and prudent, it was not 
that He held in abhorrence gifts He had be- 
stowed; or that superior endowments made 
the creature an object of dislike to his Creator, 
that He should exclude him from his mercy. 
Impossible ! But it pleased Him to clothe his 
gospel in such a form, that none but the simple- 
minded could receive it ; and while He gave 
his revelation in terms so plain, the way-faring 
man, though a fool, could not err therein, unless 
wilfully choosing darkness rather than light, 
He cast such mysterious greatness about his 
secret purposes, that the wisest should fail to 
penetrate them. It pleased Him there should 
be but one way to divine knowledge ; the 
ignorant, the poor, the simple, w^ere ready to 
enter it, and his Spirit had only to unclose the 
gate — but for the wise, the learned, the dispu- 
tatious, a previous process was required : " If 
any man will be wise, let him become a fool.'' 
They must go back and enter by the same gate 
of child-like ignorance, receiving the dictation 
of the Spirit without question and without 
dispute. This the All-wise foresaw^ they would 
not do. They would take his word as if it 



IN THE RtTLE OF LIFE. 79 

were the word of man, and examine it by 
the light of their own wisdom ; and doing so, 
would either reject it wholly, receive only so 
much of it as they could fully explain ; or, 
admitting its divine authority as a whole, 
would subject each separate pan to whatever 
construction seemed most agreeable to their 
natural reason. Well might God foretell that 
not many such would be saved, although He 
rfamed a way by which they might be. That 
which seemed impossible with men, was pos- 
sible with God. Some such are saved ; not 
by conforming his plan of salvation to their 
character, and unclosing his mysteries to satisfy 
their wisdom, but by a quite different process. 
Touched by his Spirit, they consent to become 
fools, to read, believe, and obey. But, alas ! 
how often is this the end, when it should be 
the beginning ; often even of a religious course. 
What years of holy contentment are lost; what 
seasons of doubt and despondency endured, 
because men will reason when they should 
believe, or will have other guides for their 
belief, than the plain letter of the Scriptures ! 
There cannot be an object of more painful 
interest to an enhghtened mind, than to watch 



8b CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

the progress of those amiable and almost holy 
beings, who seem to seek peace, and find none, 
to ask and not receive, to live in search of 
God, and yet to live without him. But never 
can God's promise be disannulled. To him 
that knocks, the door must be opened ; to him 
that asks the Holy Spirit, it must be given. 
There is something at the bottom that we do 
not see ; there is a reserve, an insubmission 
somewhere, that blinds the eye at the very 
moment of its anxious search. I can imagine 
it was exactly such a one that Jesus saw and 
loved ; and every pious bosom loves and won- 
ders when it sees the same — so near the king- 
dom, and yet cannot enter. Jesus probed the 
heart, and found where the canker lay beneath 
the seeming promise ; he brought it, as he did 
all things, to the test of Scripture — ''■ How 
readest thoul" Awhile it responded to the 
test : but there was one thing too much ; — he 
went away, and Jesus let him go. I think I 
read in this an explanation I could ne\'er find 
elsewhere. Men take their Bibles; we see 
them study, and we believe they pray: they 
seem willing, they seem humble, but it cannot 
be ; — there must be something under all. We 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 81 

cannot reach it ; we have not that penetrating 
eye which once glanced through the covering of 
moral excellence, to the sordid preference v^hich 
lay beneath it. But the word of God could do 
it : it could show to those individuals what it is 
they stop at; what part of its testimony it is 
that they refuse : which of its requirements 
they see no necessity for ; which of its doctrines 
their reason disputes against. Is it what the 
word tells them of themselves 1 what it tells 
them of Christ? what it tells them of the world? 
Whatever it be, if they would have peace, let 
them find it out, and give it up ; or it will be 
to them, what the young man's riches were to 
him. They will go away, and Christ will let 
them go. They will still ask and receive not, 
because they ask amiss. 

When I observe how much the simplicity of 
divine truth has been departed from, and man 
has made difficult what God has made plain, 
I cannot but think there has been in our days 
too much reading and too much talking ; and 
though I do not say too much teaching, it is 
not impossible our teachers may have too 
much departed from the example of Christ in 
the manner of their teaching. I should seem 



82 CHRIST ova EXAMPLfi 

a fool to many, if I were to say how simple 
a thing, how plain a thing to an honest mind, 
I think the religion of Christ to he — ^so much 
of it as concerns our personal salvation, and 
the effects to be produced upon us. It 
might seem even bold to say, I think the 
Bible, for the purpose for which it was intended, 
the plainest and the easiest book that ever 
has been written ; and while experience proves, 
what the Word itself declares, that no man 
understands it without the illumination of the 
Holy Spirit, I believe he requires that assist- 
ance, not to enlarge his intellect and improve 
his wit, but to reduce him to the ignorance and 
simplicity of childhood, without which he will 
not be instructed. Of this I am sure ; if they 
who have made some progress in a religious 
course, find themselves harassed by uncertain- 
ties an doctrine, or confounded by the clangour 
of disputation, they had better leave controversy 
and the opinions of men, and betake themselves 
in simplicity and prayer to the plain letter of 
the written Word. They had better become 
deaf till they can hear its language, and dumb 
till they can speak it without additions and 
without reserves. ^ What shall I do to be 



IN THE RULE OF LIFE. 83 

saved V^ is a question that in some form or other 
has agitated the world from the beginning of 
time. Volumes have been written upon it, and 
nations convulsed by it, and the united intellects 
of man expended in vain to solve it. The 
Scripture has answered it ih one plain sentence 
— so plain, nothing but wilful blindness can 
ever more mistake the way. And those prac- 
tical difficulties, which the amalgamation of the 
church with the world has so greatly multiplied^ 
and the wish to unite what God has separated^ 
has now made almost endless, how easily might 
those too be terminated, by simply referring 
them to Scripture. " What saith the Scripture ?" 
" How readest thou ?" " Be ye followers o-f 
me even as I also am of Christ.'' 

Who then follows Paul, and w^ho follows 
Christ, in their submission to the word of God ? 
The man of God, who takes it, first, as the 
rule by which he judges of his own character; 
believing he is what the Bible says he is, one 
of two things — a sinner by nature, or by grace 
a saint ; lost by nature, or by grace redeemed ; 
condemned in Adam, or justified in Christ. 
Thus Jesus : " If I bear witness of myself, my 



84 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

witness is not true."* '' These are they which 
testify of me." And St. Paul: " I judge not 
mine ownself; there is one that judgeth." 
Who takes it, secondly, as the rule by which 
he forms his principles, asking not what others 
think, venturing not to think for himself, 
believing there is one truth, one religion, one 
way of salvation, even as the Scripture saith. 
This did Christ : " My doctrine is not mine, but 
his that sent me ;'' and St. Paul : " Wo is me 
if I prea h any other Gospel." Thirdly : he 
who takes it as the rule by which he judges 
others. No names of men, no dazzling qualities, 
no bonds of intimacy can induce him to put 
darkness for light, or bitter for sweet : every 
man is to him that which Gqd seeth and God 
saith, and nothing more. It \Vas so of Christ : 
*^ I can of mine ownself do nothing; as I hear, 
I judge ;" and with St. Paul : " To his own 
master he standeth or falleth." Lastly, it is he 
who takes the Scripture for his rule of life. We 
have shown that Jesus did so ; and surely Paul 
did so, for it was to him " a small thing to be 
Judged of man's judgment," A Christian who 

"^ John V. 31. 



IN THE RULE OP LIFE. 85 

follows in their footsteps, knows no right, no 
wrong, hut according to God's revealed word. 
If he is questioned, there is his reason — if he is 
reproached, there is his defence — if he is in 
doubt, this, and this only, can resolve him. 



CHAPTER IV. 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 



" Walk in wisdom towards them that are without" 
Col. iv. 5. 

The path of life is said in Scripture to be a 
narrow way. A narrow way is easily departed 
from, and may be difficult to regam : it re- 
quires a watchful eye and steady step ; a care- 
less walker will be always swerving to the right 
hand or the left. But a narrow way is not 
necessarily an indistinct one, intricate, and 
easily mistaken ; nor is it necessarily a rough 
one, on which, while he keeps it, the traveller 
finds it difficult to walk. What then is the 
fact with respect to the path of everlasting 
life ? It is worth while to study the scriptural 
account of it, contrasted with the broad road 



IN HI3 INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 87 

that leadeth to destruction. For it does appear 
to me that men have by some means found 
a third way which answers to neither the one 
nor the other, and which, if less narrow and 
exclusive than the former, and less broad and 
well-peopled than the latter, is more difficult 
than either. And I think besides, that it is 
the children of the kingdom who are toiling on 
this difficult and dangerous road, mistaking it 
for the way that is appointed them. But sure 
I am it is not there we shall find traces of the 
Saviour's footsteps. 

Jesus tells us of two ways only ; and through- 
out the Scriptures there is no mention made 
of any other. He says that one is broad, full : 
because the gate is wide, easily entered ; and 
because the way is wide, not easily departed 
from without design. Some have thence 
concluded that this path is smooth, pleasant, 
unobstructed. Jesus does not say so ; He 
speaks only of the largeness of the entrance, 
the plenitude of space, the multitude that 
walk there, and the destruction in which it 
terminates. Other scriptures have described it. 
They speak of it as a " crooked way," a " dark 
way," a " miry way." David calls it a " dark 



B8 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

and slippery way." Solomon says that *' thorns 
and snares are in it ;" and Isaiah, that " they 
who go therein shall not know peace." Add 
to this the testimony of those who have tried it, 
and we need be in no mistake about it. For 
what is the history of every man but a record 
of the toils, the dangers, the difficulties, the 
sufferings he has found upon this crowded 
path? Who walks in peace upon it? who 
treads it fearlessly, and stumbles not ? who 
fmds a shelter in it from the wind and storm ; 
who gathers on its banks the medicinal herb 
and ever-blooming flower ? No : let not the 
inexperienced deceive themselves about this 
road ; it is easily found and easily kept, but an 
easy walk it is not. It is full of difficulties, 
and there is no light to walk by ; it is full of 
enemies, and there is no balm for the wounded ; 
the blight of sorrow is there, but no place of 
shelter from its keenness. It is a dark way, 
for the light of truth is not upon it ; it is a cold 
way, for the warmth of heaven is not in it ; 
it is a crooked way, where no man sees before 
him, nor knows whither the next turn may 
bring him ; it is a perilous way, where no man 
lies down in safety^ nor knows that he shall rise 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 89 

m peace. Such is the broad road that leadeth 
to destruction. 

Jesus tells us of but one other ; and because 
it is narrow, men have concluded it is difficult; 
But again I observe that Jesus does not say so. 
I could fancy I see it in the white path that 
skirts the mountainous cliff ; the precipice on the 
one side, on the other the broad greensward^ 
seeming smooth at a distance, but really im- 
practicable. Mile beyond mile, it lies distinct 
before us ; broken by the undulations of the 
cliff, but reuniting as we advance upon it. It 
is easily departed from, and lies very near to 
danger ; he would be at great risk who should 
walk there in the dark, with blinded eyes or an 
itiebriated brain ; but if he be sober, be vigi- 
lant, the solid rock must give way beneath his 
feet, before he can be endangered. How speak 
the Scriptures of this heavenward path ? One 
who had tried it speaks thus of it : " Then 
shalt ihou walk in thy way safely, and thy feet 
shall not stumble ; when thou liest down, thou 
shalt not be afraid, yea, thou shalt lie down 
and thy sleep be sweet." Another says, " The 
way of righteousness is made plain." The 
Lord by Jeremiah saith, " Walk therein, and 
8* 



so CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

ye shall find rest to your souls ;" " W alk ye 
in all the ways that I have commanded you, 
chat it may be well with you." Isaiah says 
the way of holiness is plain, a fool shall not err 
therein ; and David, that it is a way of plea- 
santness, and all its paths are peace. St. Luke 
alludes to it as the way of peace, lighted by the 
day-spring from on high, and applies to it the 
prophetic words, " The crooked shall be made 
straight, and the rough places smooth.'' These 
are not definitions of a path so difficult to 
distinguish, that the most willing cannot tell 
whether they are on it or beside it ; they do 
not signify something so obscure, that he who 
is upon it cannot see his way, and must go 
forward at a venture ; so very intricate, that 
the most watchful is at risk to lose himself 
There must be some mistake in this ; and if 
I feel that I cannot appeal with as much con- 
fidence as before to those that have tried it, 
the thought again occurs, that we must have 
lighted on some other path, or made crooked for 
ourselves what God has said is straight. 

The way by which some Christians try to- 
reach their end is a difficult one indeed ; but 
it is none of God's appointing. There is no 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 91 

Way-mark of his upon it, but what bids them 
leave it. The erratic traveller, less mindful 
of the place he makes for, than of the objects 
by the way, choosing to forsake the beaten 
track, try every defile, and plunge into every 
thicket, meets a thousand dangers that were 
not in his path, sometimes swamped, sometimes 
benighted, always impeded, and not really ad- 
vancing till he regains the road. If Christians 
choose to travel forward thus, it is no w^onder 
that their way is difficult, but it is not re- 
ligion makes it so. Such is not the path the 
Saviour's previous footsteps have trodden into 
smoothness, and hghted with the lamp of his 
own Spirit. His is a way of uprightness, 
straight, direct, uniform. Theirs is the way 
of compromise, of equivocations, of spiritual 
dishonesty. It is neither the broad road of 
the world, nor the narrow road of the gospel ; 
and since there is no other, it is no road at 
all, but a traceless and inextricable wilder- 
ness. They who stray into it never know 
where they are; they ask directions of every 
body, and see not which way to turn : all is 
hazard and uncertainty. What wonder if the 
ground be rugged and the walk uneasy ? " Thy 



92 t;HRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

word is a laiDp unto my feet and a light unto 
my paths." But the lamp of God is fixed 
where he lighted it ; it sheds a steady blaze on 
the heavenward track, wherein they who walk 
can never be in darkness. But it is a lamp 
that cannot be removed ; men cannot take it 
down, and carry it with them wherever they 
choose to go. In their dubious wanderings 
through the ways of indecision, they may see it 
perhaps, just see it at a distance, mercifully 
shining to direct them back again ; but many 
a trackless mile must be passed over before its 
beams fall again upon their steps — '' God is 
not mocked." He has said that men must 
separate at the outset — at the gate, and his 
people must walk apart ; his people do not 
beheve it. He reads in many an awakened 
bosom this resolution, '' I will walk with God, 
but I will not separate from the world." Some- 
times he lets them try, but there is anger in his 
acquiescence: "Ephraim is wedded to idols, 
let him alone ;" '' The Lord thy God led thee 
these forty years in the wilderness, to humble 
thee and to prove thee, to know what was in thine 
heart." There was a straight way from Egypt 
into Canaan — there was nothing to prevent ; 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 93 

sooner must -the Red Sea part its waters, than 
Israel's steps be turned aside ; hosts of armed 
enemies could not have said to him, Go round. 
It was his faithfulness which sent him into the 
wilderness. If any one who thinks he has 
entered by the gate of life, does not find within 
it a way of pleasantness and peace, does not see 
a lamp upon it always burning to direct his 
steps, finds himself in a labyrinth of uncer- 
tainties, instead of a straight path, I entreat 
hhn to consider whether God has at any time 
seen in the secrecy of his heart a resolution 
such as I have named. Is it in acquiescence 
with God's plan, or in some one of his own 
devising, that so much of darkness and diffi- 
culty has been met with ? 

These remarks are not inapplicable to those 
mazes of doctrinal error in which some erratic 
spirits continually involve themselves, because 
they will not walk simply in the beaten tract. 
The way of salvation is plain and straightfor- 
ward, long tried and safely trodden by the saints 
who have gone before us. But because it is so, 
the spiritual adventurer does not Hke it. Like the 
vagrant stragglers of an advancing army, they 
cannot content themselves with a steady pro- 



94 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

gression ; they must be hither and thither with 
endless bustle and disturbance, though the end 
of all is only to return and rejoin the main 
body on the road. The world esteems them 
lost — it is mistaken; their head is turned, as 
the expression is, but their hearts are right 
with God ; they have left all for Christ. The 
sober Christian sees them depart w4th pain, and 
vainly cries after them to return; yet does he 
not despair of them ; he knows that mercy will 
not let them lose themselves. But when, with 
weariness, and fatigue, and many hurts, they 
come back again, and find themselves just no 
farther on their way to heaven than if they had 
walked simply forward with the company whose 
sobriety they despised, let them never say they 
got their hurts and dangers and fatigues on the 
straight path to heaven. This by the way. 
Our subject is rather with the practical difB- 
culties of a religious course, arising out of the 
position of a child of God in an ungodly world. 
What is his position? The same exactly as 
his Saviour's was. " Ye are not of the world, 
even as [ am not of the world;" "It is enough 
for the disciple that he be as his master, and 
the servant as his lord ;" " Heirs of God, 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD 95 

and joint heirs with Christ ;" '' Crucified unto 
the world, and the world to us." Jesus was 
a holy being, dwelling for a short season among 
sinful creatures, in the dominions of that prince 
of this world, between whose seed and himself 
there had been enmity from the beginning, 
How was it to be expected such a one would 
live in such a world? Doubtless had he con- 
sulted his own feelings, He would have with- 
drawn himself from all contact with creatures 
of a character and destiny so unlike his own. 
He would have spared himself their insults and 
reproaches, the sight of their sufferings, and 
the disgust of their sins, by living secluded till 
the hour of expiation came. This He did not ; 
He could not thus have accomplished the 
Father's will, or fulfilled the purposes of his 
existence here. It is difficult to understand 
the delusion of those mistaken ones, who have 
thought to follow Christ by a life of solitude 
and abstraction — soldiers that hid themselves in 
the day of battle, labourers that took shelter 
from the heat and burden of the day. In our 
time there is not much temptation to seclusion ; 
but if any one under the influence of a fervid 
piety, feels disposed to leave the station in 



96 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

which Providence has placed him, on account 
of the obstacles it opposes to his principles, he 
should well consider, before he recedes, whether 
they are difficulties or impossibilities; if the 
latter, he must fly from them. God places no 
man in a situation in which he cannot liv'e 
a holy and religious life ; therefore, come there 
how he might, he is not where God would have 
him be, and must withdraw at any sacrifice ; — 
but if the former, Christ never fled from diffi- 
culties, never shunned obloquy, nor hid himself 
from opposition. Or when the newly awakened 
spirit feels the ties of natural connexion become 
onerous by reason of uncongeniality of senti- 
ment, much is to be considered before those ties 
are severed. We must leave all for Christ, but 
then we must be sure it is for Christ ; we must be 
sure it is not to lighten our own cross, by flying 
from the influence we might have resisted, and 
escaping the opposition we might have borne 
with. No earthly ties or earthly duties can be 
pleaded in excuse for sin. It is impossible: 
because God never places any man in such an 
opposition of claims, that one or other of his 
laws must needs be broken. There is a first 
commandment, and the second is like unto it ; 
they can never stand in competition. Perhaps 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 97 

we mistake our social duties, calling by that 
name some sinful compliances, which stain our 
conscience, whilst we want courage to refuse 
them. Perhaps the temptation to sin arising 
from our near connexions, does not so much 
proceed from without, as from within ; we fear 
their censures, when v/e should only bear with 
them ; we desire their approbation, when we 
know it to be against the mind of God. Thus 
it is our feelings, rather than our connexions, 
that require to be changed. If no duty binds 
us to them, and no bonds of providential ap- 
pointment unite us, we may better show our 
honest fear of sin, and willingness to part with 
all for God, by removing from the temptation, 
than presuming on our power to overcome it. 
But we must not break the ties of nature, 
where we need only loosen them. We must 
not cease to love, where we should only love 
differently ; and in all cases we must be sure 
it is the fear of sinning against our principles, 
not the fear of disgrace and difficulty in main- 
taining them, that induces us to abandon our 
position in life, and hide ourselves from the 
legitimate intercourse of society. This did not 
9 



98 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

Christ. " I spake openly to the world ; in se- 
cret have I said nothing." 

On the other hand, Christ never wilfully 
exposed himself to temptation. Pure and sin- 
less as He was, and ^ all'-pov/erful to resist it 
as He knew himself to be, Jesus did not go 
of his own choice into the wilderness, to try 
his strength against the tempter. Wherever 
that event is mentioned, it is distinctly said, 
" He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness," 
an expression peculiar to those passages, as 
if on purpose to distinguish that act from 
every other of his life, and show us that He, 
even He, went not willingly to meet his 
Father's enemy, and Hsten to the language 
of seduction. What a lesson, what a reproof ! 
We, predisposed as we are to sin, incapable 
of resisting it as we know ourselves to be — do 
we go boldly and without necessity where 
Satan keeps his court, where he spreads his 
blandishments, where we know we must meet 
him, and either defeat his wiles or be seduced 
by them ? Do we venture to say, that if our 
own principles are good, there is no risk to us 
in any company, in any place ? we can walk 
side by side with the enemies of God, and sit 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 99 

in the counsels of sinners, without any danger 
of being seduced from our allegiance to God ? 
Jesus was not thus bold, though He might 
have been. If we set one step into the wilder- 
ness of temptation without the leading of the 
Spirit, for the fulfilment of some known com- 
mand, we follow not in the footsteps of our 
Lord. God took Him there, that He might 
in all things be more than conqueror. God 
may take us there ; and if he does, it will be 
to conquer too. But of those who go thither 
unbidden, to break a lance with the enemy 
for pastime; or knight-errant like, to free the 
world from his enchantments, let no one think 
he does as Jesus did. 

Next of the choice our Saviour made of his 
companions. We all have companions, as- 
sociates, friends : individuals more or less 
numerous, with whom we pass our tmie, and 
hold a more intimate converse than with the 
world at large, exclusively of our domestic ties. 
Of these there is but one that admits of any 
choice, and that may be indissolubly formed, 
before we have the light of truth to form 
it by. I include all voluntary intimacies. 
The choice that Jesus made was so contrary 



100 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

to what men thought it should be, as to be ^n 
occasion of scandal and reproach : " The friend 
of publicans and sinners." The charge was 
false ; Jesus never chose profligacy or immo- 
rality for his companions : He endured their 
presence to accomplish his purpose of calling 
sinners to repentance ; but He abode not with 
them. He lived not in their intimacy. Men 
did not know, or would not know, that it was 
converted sinners, sanctified publicans, Jesus 
took for his companions ; He changed their 
hearts when he chose them for his own, and 
made them holy when he received them into his 
bosom. The favoured disciples, the family of 
Lazarus- — all whom He particularly loved in 
earthly fellowship, whatever they had been 
before, became by his influence, like-minded 
with himself Thus were they fittest and the 
only fit ; they were servants of his God and 
children of his Father : '' My God and your 
God, my Father and your Father." He saw 
in them the crown of his rejoicing, the fruit 
of his Spirit, the companions of his eternity. 
With such only did Jesus hold the intercourse 
of friendship. Calling to mind once more that 
interesting incident we have several times 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. lOl 

referred to, of his loving one whom He did not 
convert, we cannot but observe that this man 
did not become one of his familiar friends — He 
had none but those who were the children of 
his Father. He had intercourse with others in 
the common walks of life ; in the streets, in 
the market-places, in the synagogues, wherever 
He could obtain a hearing from them ; He 
sat as a guest at their tables, but still as we 
shall presently observe, for the same purpose. 
Neither the pharisee who mistook the way of 
life, nor the sadducee who despised it, nor any 
subject whatsoever of the kingdoms of this 
world, became the companion of the holy Jesus, 
" save only the son of perdition, that the scrip- 
ture might be fulfilled." 

As with the master, so with the servant. 
The world wonders now, as it did then, at the 
exclusiveness of the Christian's preference. 
Why like only the society of those who exactly 
agree with you in matters of religion ? why not 
the good of all sorts ? There are the moral, 
the intellectual, the agreeable. They may not 
be quite so spiritual as you could wish, but 
they are a great deal better company than the 
people of God. Jesus did not think so. His 
' 9* 



102 CHRIST OUR KXAMPLE 

followers cannot think so if they be in any-wise 
like-minded with hniiself. And in fact they 
do not. St. John says, " We know that we 
are passed from death unto life, because we 
love the brethren ;" that very preference w'as 
a mark of their renewed state. And it is a 
mark now, and ever will be — a distuictive 
feature of the recovered image of the Lord, 
with this peculiarity, that it is more visible 
than most other traces of his likeness; for 
whether it be understood or not, it is immedi- 
ately perceptible to ai). Let me not be misun- 
derstood: I do not say that the pleasure we 
take in some religious company is a proof of 
our fellowship with Christ. The times are 
peculiar in this respect. We live in an age 
when the religious are also the refined, the 
sensible, the cultivated, and we may like their 
company on that account. Religious conversa- 
tion too is become very animating, very 
interesting : its themes are among the favourite 
topics of the day : there is as much opportunity 
for wit, and sentiment and knowledge, and 
feehng, to exercise themselves, and charm theii' 
auditors, as in any other manner of discourse. 
Nature can love all this : it always did. Crowds 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 103 

followed wheresoever Jesus went ; hundreds 
listened whenever he spake. Unbelievers 
invited him to their feasts, as the world now 
invites some eminent preacher, or pious writer, 
to gratify their company, and hear his words ; 
for the same purpose as they invite on the 
morrow a skilful musician, or a skeptic poet. 
This is not that love of the brethren which 
St. John spake of, which Jesus manifested. 
That is a constant, an exclusive preference, 
which nature never felt. It is not the natural 
man that is beloved : it is the new name written 
on his forehead, the traces of the divine image 
drawn upon his bosom. It is loved wherever 
it is seen : it is loved in proportion as it is 
seen : it is loved in all conditions, amidst all 
alloy, and it is loved exclusivelj^. Yes, ex- 
clusively : — because the preference which the 
people of God feel for each other as such, is 
quite distinct from every other preference. I 
do not say it is the only love. There is the 
love of general benevolence due to all, the love 
of domestic relationship commanded by God, 
the love of natural assimilation implanted in 
our nature. Jesus knew some of them ; but 
there was a preference that superseded them in 



104 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

the choice of his companions. They are not 
forbidden to us ; but the time is coming when 
all must be superseded — the tie must be severed, 
the charnri must be dissolved, and the bosom's 
sympathy be foregone for ever ; we shall 
have only and love only those who are united 
with us in Christ. Can that be nothing now 
which must so soon be all ? Impossible. On 
the contrary, every step that we advance in the 
divine life, this preference gains ground oa 
every other. We may not have said to our- 
selves at the outset, I will change nriy friends ; 
we may not have light enough to see the neces- 
sity of separation, nor grace enough to beheve 
it, nor strength enough to effect it. But when 
we enter by the narrow gate, our companions 
do not follow ; as we walk in the strait way, 
they are not by our side ; insensibly the dis- 
tance grows between us, and we soon perceive 
that we have changed our friends. • There are 
a few cold efforts at re-union ; they come a little 
way upon our path to seek us, but it is too 
strait for them, they cannot walk there, they 
do not hke the company ; and though they 
scarce know why, they find us not the same we 
used to be : If any man be in Christ Jesus, 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 105 

he is a new creature." By-gone associations 
may induce us to go awhile with them; but 
this is ahke impossible. The broad road com- 
pany seem as much changed to us as we to 
them, although not reallj^ so. We wonder at 
its dullness and insipidity, and at ourselves that 
ever we found pleasure in it : '' Old things are 
passed away, all things are become new." Re- 
union is impossible ; our fresh-tuned spirits can 
no longer sound one note in unison with theirs ; 
our altered hopes and joys and feelings meet 
with no response. If we are compelled to stay, 
like them, in Babylon, we hang our joyless 
harps upon the willows ; we cannot sing the 
Lord's song where all is heartless dissonance. 
Could the children of this world take one 
glance into the bosom of a child of God, to see 
the pained weariness of the renewed spirit in 
an assembly which they call gay, at a table 
which they call convivial, they would learn 
more of the reality of the change than could 
be taught them by a thousand sermons. 

But while worldly attachments are unloosed, 
and the zest of v^^orldly associations dies away, 
does the Christian bosom become a desert? 
does the breath of the Spirit like the autumn 



106 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

blast, consign it to wintry barrenness? Far 
from it : his feelings are changed, not blunted ; 
his affections are transferred, not chilled. Nay, 
there is a warmth of attachment in God's 
adopted family, which is known nothing of in 
the selfish intercourse of the world's society. 
It is thus described ; " Whether one member 
suffer, all the members suffer with it ; if one 
member be honoured, all the members rejoice 
with it." This corporate sensitiveness is so 
perceptible as to become a cause of scandal 
and reproach. Men call it party spirit ; eager- 
ness to defend people, because they happen to 
be of our way of thinking ; prejudice, partiality, 
because they are saints. Well, let it be all of 
these : we know to whom it was . first said, 
"When saw we thee an hungered," &c. and 
who first answered, *' Inasmuch as ye did it 
unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
did it unto me." Where shall we find in all 
the world a union so intimate, a tie so strong ? 
Let us never clear ourselves from such a charge. 
Preference for God's people is the very badge 
of our profession. But if it be seen on the 
other hand, as, alas ! it too often may, that 
these feelings of fellowship are wanting where 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 107 

they should be found; that the children of 
God's family do not love each other now, as 
they did when they were a despised and per- 
secuted few ; let us confess it and be ashamed. 
It is no sign of the vigour of the divine life 
within us ; it is no feature of the renewed image 
of our Lord, that we should feel equal interest 
in his friends and his enemies ; that if we are 
told such an one is pious, it is no recommenda- 
tion to our notice ; and if we perceive them to 
be so, it makes no way to our affections, till we 
can discover what they are beside. It was not 
so with Christ. We need not suppose that He 
loved all alike, even of those that were his. It 
was a human preference, excited probably by 
the charm of individual character, that attached 
him to. St. John : but he did love all with a 
preferential love, such as He felt not for the 
world. He loved the impress of his Father's 
grace, whether appearing in the impetuous zeal 
of Peter, the guileless integrity of Nathanael, 
or the gentleness of the beloved apostle. Must 
I say any thing to those who like to find pious 
people in the wrong ; and when they are in the 
wrong, feel the triumph of a rival rather than 
the shame of a brother ? Or to those who have 



108 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

no objection to religious society upon occasions ; 
find people amiable nohoithstanding they are 
saints, and like them very well in spite of their 
devotion? The heart is said to be deceitful 
above all things ; but his must be deceitful 
above all other hearts who can persuade himself 
that, so speaking, so feeling, he is of the mind of 
Him who chose no company on earth but these, 
and will have none other in heaven. 

But Jesus did enter into other company. It 
is not mentioned in Scripture that He ever 
refused an mvitation; probably He never de- 
clined sitting at meat with any who w^ere 
desirous of receiving Him. And why? He 
gives the reason for himself. ^' He came not 
to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." 
Wherever there was a sinner, Jesus had busi- 
ness — " his Father's business." It was not his 
pleasure took him there : It was not the social 
cheer, or the unhallowed mirth ; He never sal 
a silent spectator of ungodly sports. As if to 
make a mistake on this point impossible, there 
is no instance given of his going to a feast, that 
we are not also told what passed there. In 
what character did Jesus appear ; in what 
character was he invited 1 At the marriage of 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD, 109 

Cana, which preceded his public ministry, his 
mother being also present, it is probable he 
was bidden as an ordinary guest ; but not the 
smallest reason is given us to suppose that this 
was an ungodly assembly, or any other than an 
innocent festivity on an occasion of domestic 
rejoicing. It was probably an entertainment 
of the poor, or the wife of the carpenter and 
his reputed son might not have been among the 
guests ; and the friends of Mary were likely to 
be those who feared the Lord. The paucity of 
provisions rather confirms the former supposi- 
tion. A supply of hospitable refreshment might 
be miraculously given ; but Jesus would not 
have put forth the energies of his Deity to 
gratify sensual appetite and promote excess. In 
all other instances, Christ was not bidden as an 
ordinary guest. He who was always in the 
streets, followed by multitudes, denounced by 
the authorities, preaching strange doctrines, 
and performing miraculous works, was the 
wonder and excitement of the day, whether men 
beheved Him a prophet or impostor. All who 
invited Him, invited Him as such; expecting, no 
doubt, some manifestation of his extraordinary 
pretensions — and they were never disappointed. 
10 



110 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

Jesus appeared always in his own peculiai.'' 
character, a preacher of righteousness, a warn-^ 
ing prophet, a witness for the Father. There- 
is not an instance of his having sat at meat 
with sinners, without reproving their iniquities .> 
or sharing the hospitahty of unbelievers, with- 
out forcing them to hsten to the words of truth. 
Wherever he was,, he was about his Father's 
business — " Simon, I have somewhat to say 
unto thee." If He had not, He would not have 
been at Simon^s table. The Captain of our 
salvation never hid his colours ; He never 
passed in company for one who came to do as 
others did ; who thought no otherwise, and felt 
no otherwise, than the convivial, unbelieving^ 
God -forgetting circle round him. Not only did. 
he never forget his own character, but He never 
allowed it to be forgotten or mistaken. 

Are tlic followers of Christ in doubt where 
they should go ? Are his people at a loss to 
know in what circle they may visit? Wherever 
they can do as Jesus did. Wherever sin will 
be discountenanced by the manifestation of 
their holiness, or thoughtlessness be reproved 
by the expression of their i)iety. Wherever 
they can say, '' I have something to say to 



tN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. Ill 

thee" from God. In short, wherever they can 
keep their light so burning, '' that it will give 
^light to all that are in the house." It must no 
where be hidden, no where be extinguished. 
When it begins to burn dim ; when we feel less 
conscious of the divine life in our souls, less 
value for it, and less willingness to betray it ; 
when our thoughts are diverted from God, and 
indisposed for prayer, it is time to recede from 
the unhallowed atmosphere ; as the recovering 
invalid shrinks from the chill which recalls 
the symptoms of disease. When men of the 
world take no oiFence at our religion, delight in 
our company, and cease to perceive any differ- 
ence between themselves and us, it is time to 
remove our candle ; it gives no light, it will go 
out, and we shall be left in darkness. There is 
a difference in this respect between ourselves 
and our divine Example : He could not be cor- 
rupted by association with sinners. Himself all 
purity, all strength. He incurred no risk by 
•anything. But I think we need take no ac- 
count of this difference. Christ is a perfect 
-example: He never presumed on his own 
safety to do what would be unsafe to us — He 
i.>eyer braved evil, because he had the power ta 



112 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

resist it — He had no taste for the company of 
the, ungodly — He could not make pastime of 
the world's vanities, and countenance its delu- 
sions, because secure from their contagion ; 
and as Christ never acted on his strength to go 
where his Father's business did not call Him^ 
so we need never act upon our weakness to 
draw back, when the same business demands our 
presence. His strength is ours, to use it as He 
used it ; his Spirit is with us, to go where He 
would have gone. If our purpose in mixing 
with the world is as single as his was, and our 
bearing and conversation are conformable to our 
purpose, all will be safe to us, as it was safe to 
Him. But then to us, as to him, all will be 
uncongenial, all unsuitable — intercourse with 
ungodliness will be an effort of self-denying 
love, made for the accomplishment of our Fa- 
ther's will, for the fulfilment of our duties, the 
promotion of religion, and the salvation of man- 
kind. And what would be the consequence of 
such an assimilation ? — the same as it was with 
Christ. The world would not have us — would 
not bear us. The children of this world wull 
never endure the high, consistent bearing cf ii 
child of God. '' Whom makost thou thyself f'* 



^T^ HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 113 

It is a high bearing. The believer comes into 
-worldly company professing himself to be what 
ihose around him are not ; professing to know 
what those around him know not. He despises 
the things they hold in most esteem, and sets 
no value on their applause. He refuses to con- 
form to their fashions, or obey their rules, or 
speak their language. He will not enter into 
their amusements, and the reason he will not is, 
because they are too frivolous, or too corrupt to 
i^ecome his character and expectations. This 
is a high assumption : no meekness, no low^liness 
of spirit will make it pass. He who was all 
goodness, all humility, could not reconcile the 
world to this. *' For thy good deeds we stone 
thee not, but because thou makest thyself the 
vSon of God." No terms of self-abasement in 
which we can clothe our pretensions avail us 
^anything. We may confess with St. Paul that 
we are " chief of sinners ;" with Isaiah, that 
we are brands plucked from the burning ; with 
Job, " that we abhor ourselves in dust and 
ashes ;" the elevation on which we assume to 
.stand by grace, is still the same rock of offence. 
.Men do not believe it, and they cannot forgive 
it They will forgive us, if we will conceal it ^ 
10* 



114 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

forbear it in our words, and deny it in our 
deeds ; if we will reserve our wedding-garment 
for fit occasions, and appear in their company 
dressed in earthly fashion ; if we will forget 
our Father's house, and feed contentedly on 
their husks of vanity — they would have borne 
with Jesus on such terms. If He would have 
withdrawn his claim to be the Son of God — if 
He would have denied before Pilate that He 
was a king, He need not have been crucified. 
Let us not believe that men will bear from us, 
miserable sinners like themselves, with nothing 
to show why we should be better or more 
beloved than they — no proofs of our adoptioUy 
but that spirit within us which we cannot make 
manifest to unbelievers — let us not believe 
that society will bear in us what it could not 
in Him, who had all power and holiness to prove 
his Sonship. If we do in all company what 
Jesus did, society will soon discard us. They 
will not bear our indifference to their vain pur- 
suits, still less our exhortations, and still less 
our warxiings. Let us take the cross in our 
hands, and Christ's name ui)on our lips, and the 
seal of the Spirit on our forehead, and walk 
before all men in the strait road that leads to 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 115 

everlasting life, we shall soon be disembarrassed 
of all worldly company. 

I have returned where I began. There is a 
road on which our Saviour's example can be no 
guide to us, because he was never there — the 
path of indecision. Methinks it is like the 
waste common that belongs to no one — nobody 
smooths it, nobody clears it, or builds a wall, 
or sets a watch upon it ; its crooked and uneven 
tracks run all at random, crossing and re-cross- 
ing, and tending to no issue. It is not Satan's, 
and it is not God's. In Satan's kingdom, he 
at least will give us no disturbance ; and in 
God's kingdom his Spirit will be our guide and 
guardian. Here no one owns us, all challenge 
us and we must fight with all — with Satan, 
with the world, with the Spirit, and with our- 
selves — with our conscience sometimes, some- 
times our inclinations — resisted by all, and 
wounded by each in turn. It is a hard battle 
— who shall fight it out ? 

I may seem to have merged the subject of 
the Christian's intercourse with the world, in 
that of decision of character. I have done so, 
because I think the difficulty is in principle 
rather than in practice. I am confirmed in this 



116 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

opinion by remarking, perhaps by remember^ 
ing how much young converts think and talk 
about separation from the world — the hoiOj and 
the ivhi/j and the Jioiv much. It is a question 
then, because it is a sacrifice ; and it is a sacri- 
fice, because the heart is still divided. We 
have all reasoned, and all written, to prove we 
must not do what, if our hearts were wholly with 
God, we could not do. When more established 
in the faith, instead of talking of separation, we 
find we are separated. Either the world has 
left us or we have left the world, or God, with 
the outstretched arm of providence has rent it 
from us. Separate purposes, separate affec- 
tions, and a separate destinj' have wrought such 
a chasm between us, the difficulty is now to 
repass it, for the business, the duties, and chari- 
ties of life. It is a common expression, when 
people act inconsistently with their character 
and station, to say, " they forget themselves." 
O did the children of God never forget them- 
selves, there would be few mistakes about their 
carriage in an ungodly world. If they knew 
always, and felt always what they are, and 
whither they are going, ye " shall be my sons 
find daughters, saith the Lord" — " one with tha 



IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE WORLD. 117 

Father and the Son*' — "I in him, ye in me, 
and I in you" — a single precept would be 
sufficient for all instruction — "Walk worthy 
of the vocation wherewith ye are called." 



CHAPTER V. 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 



" Tlie Son of J\Ian hath not where to lay his 
head:'— MM. viii. 20. 



Of all who have come into existence here, 
Christ Jesus is the only one who chose his own 
condition. This may seem at first sight to 
make our subject unnecessary : for where there 
is no election, there can be no responsibility. 
But it is not exactly so. In the bh'th condition 
of every individual soul, one of two things only 
can be seen — a totally blind and undirected 
chance, or the absolute sovereignty of God. 
It is vain to ask of second causes, why of tw^o 
sentient beings with equal claims, and with as 
much n-t stake, one opons his eyos upon thfi 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 119 

splendour of a palace, the other upon the hor- 
rors of a cellar. Who can tell us why the 
promise of a princely house, whose cherished 
existence is his parent's hope, whose little limbs 
are wrapped in ermine, and fondly sheltered 
from every approach of harm; his faculties 
unfolding only to enjoy, mcreasing only to 
be satisfied ; every feehng considered, every 
thought directed; — who can tell us, why the 
great one's darling did not change identity with 
the squalid offspring of degraded passion, and 
open his eyes upon filth and profligacy, his 
ears upon blasphemy and falsehood ; unclothed, 
untaught, and uncared for, till Nature matures 
his faculties into instruments of crime. Nor 
need we have recourse to destinies so opposite 
as these, to study this most mysterious page of 
Natm'e's secrets. There is scarcely a domestic 
circle where we may not study it as well. In 
the same family we may compare the vigorous 
frame, and beautiful countenance, and brilliant 
intellect of one member, formed to win and to 
delight the world, with the awkward person, 
and doltish faculties, and sickly temperament of 
another, doomed to owe all things to the world's 
•compassion ; with no difference of merit, or 



120 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

of any thing but what Providence has made 
in their formation. Philosophy finds reasons 
in the animal functions, in the physical tem- 
perament, or the organization of the brain. 
But where is the reason of their reasons.? Some- 
thing must have guided Nature's hand in this 
unequal distribution. Few of us, I suppose, 
have lived to a thinking age, without frequently 
asking ourselves, when we come in contact 
with persons far removed in condition from 
ourselves, Why was my destiny not yours, 
and yours not mine ? 

There is but one solution — the absolute, un- 
biassed sovereignty of God ; who owes no man 
any thing, and may do what He will with his 
own. It is strange, that those who on the plea of 
injustice make objection to the partial ^'operation 
of God's electing grace, do not perceive that 
the same objection would be equally valid 
against every operation of his hand in creation 
and in providence. The charge of injustice is 
but one step removed, by saying that grace is 
equally bestowed on all, but its productiveness 
depends upon the soils it acts upon. What has 
made these soils so diverse? Birth, circum- 
stance, example, education, habit, temperament, 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 121 

natural disposition, and external influences; 
the thousand things by which character is 
formed, without our own consent, at the absolute 
free disposal of Divine sovereignty. Were it 
granted, that God gives his equal grace to all, 
could it be contended that He places all in 
equal condition to receive it ; and does no more 
for the spiritual regeneration of the child of 
pious parents, instructed in the Scripture from 
his youth, than for that of the vagabond gipsy, 
who never saw a Bible, and could not read it 
if he did, nor heard the name of God, except 
in impious oaths. It is a mysterious subject ; 
but if it teaches us submission, and puts our 
reasoning pride to silence, it is not a useless 
one. There is but one equality. There is one 
way yet of bringing all men to a level, and 
placing them on equal terms before their Judge. 
Take from the best man all that he derived 
from his formation in his mother's womb, from 
the circumstances of his life, and the imme- 
diate influiences of Heaven — all that he would 
not have been, had he been differently dispo- 
sitioned, and differently bred, and differently 
influenced; and let the worst man subtract 
from his account, all that would not have been 
-11 



122 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

in it, had he had the natural and providential 
advantages of the other, till nothing be left to 
either but what is wilfully his own, what he 
has been against conviction, and despite of 
means, or has not been by neglect Of them — 
we shall come to something of a level then. 
Sin in preference and in principle will be man's 
equal basis, and all beside it will be ascribed to 
Him who oweth no man any thing, but giveth 
to every one severally as he will. I may seem 
to have departed from my subject, by speaking 
of man's irresponsible condition in the world. 
Perhaps I shall be able presently to show, that 
he is, in fact, responsible for a great deal more 
of it than at first appears, since before he 
strikes the balance with his destiny, he must 
add to his own account all the temptations, and 
disadvantages, and evil mfluences, to which he 
has unnecessarily exposed himself 

To return where we began. Christ Jesus 
was the only one who chose his own condition 
in the world, and his choice was adverse to all 
that human wisdom would have suggested. We 
should have said of Him, as we say of our- 
selves, that an elevated station would afford the 
greater means of doing good. We should have 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE, V23 

thought a great deal about influence and oppor- 
tunity, and the effect to be produced by a de- 
scent from princely greatness to a malefactor's 
grave ; with all the contrast to be exhibited by 
the way, between the humility of his deport- 
ment and the dignity of his station. God 
judged otherwise — He has judged always 
otherwise. Whether to manifest that, while the 
instrument is nothing, all power and all effect 
depends on the hand that wields it, or with 
intent to pour contempt on whatever seems great 
and glorious to us, He has never chosen the 
great things, or the great ones of this world to do 
his work with, even when they seem the fittest 
for his purpose. What an effect, as w^e should 
think, would have been produced, had Jesus 
made the throne of the Roman Empire the step- 
ping-stone to the cross, and exhibited his passion 
and humiliation before the delegates of the 
universe assembled there, through whom the 
report would have gone forth to every nation 
under heaven ! But this w^as not what He in- 
tended ; He chose his birth-place in a tributary 
province, distinguished indeed above every 
other, but with a distinction nothing thought of 
in the world ; and He chose it not in the capital 



124 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

of that province, but in an inferior city ; and not 
among the great ones there, but with its meanest 
and most unknown. All that was striking, all 
that was remarkable in the Redeemer's birth 
was supernatural. He deigned not to make 
any use of temporal signs to distinguish it from 
others, as if He were determined to derive no 
evidence of his greatness from the world, and 
to give it none but of a miraculous kind. Nor 
was it for himself alone, that Jesus chose 
poverty and meanness of condition. He chose 
the same for the companions and instruments of 
his work. He took his disciples from among 
the unknown ; not that he preferred the poor 
because they were poor — we must beware of 
erecting poverty into a merit, as has been done 
ere now — but He preferred poverty, because He 
knew it to be the state in which his followers 
could best subserve his Father's purposes. 
Doubtless, He who foreknew and fore-arranged 
the whole, had placed in that station those He 
intended to select from it — a choice as little 
consonant with our ideas of what would have 
been best, as that which he made for himself; 
because the sudden conversion of twelve persons 
of elevated station and distinguished talent, 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 125 

would have produced a great sensation, tending 
much more directly, as seems to us, to the evan- 
gelizing of the world. But God never meant 
to evangelize the world : He meant to call for 
himself a people out of it, by the workings of 
his grace, and to this little flock to give his 
kingdom. He meant to send the whispers of 
his still small voice throughout the earth, that 
whosoever would hear it might be saved ; but 
He would commend it to them by no factitious 
attractions, borrowed of this world's wisdom or 
its greatness. Our judgment in the first instance 
is not unnatural, nor perhaps unreasonable, but 
it is a matter of surprise that after so long 
experience that God judges otherwise, we 
should persist in attaching so much importance 
to great names and gi*eat means for the advance- 
ment of religion — still more that they who 
acknowledge Christ as an example, should so 
frequently insinuate that evangelical principles 
are professed only by the weak and disesteemed 
of men, while persons of most name and 
influence in the church are following in the 
broad way of charitable indiflference. They will 
not remember, or will not beUeve, that as under 
the Jewish dispensation God chose for himself 
11* 



126 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

a people that were the '^ fewest of all people," so, 
under the Christian dispensation, the Scripture 
emblems of his church are " a fold," " a little 
flock." It will be a glorious kingdom sometime, 
in characters of greatness becoming its eternal 
King. But that will be only at the restitution 
of all things, when the " kingdoms of this world 
shall become the kingdoms of our Lord." Till 
then, learning and wealth, and greatness, will 
never be on the Lord's side — meanness, igno- 
rance, poverty, simplicity, never will be evidences 
against the value of a religious profession. This, 
by the way.' 

It is as individuals, each one for ourselves, 
that we are to be conformed to the image of our 
Lord. He chose poverty, he chose meanness 
of condition, he chose to be the least of all 
men. Who besides him does so ? It may be 
said, He chose it not of preference, but because 
it exposed him to the suffering which was the 
purpose of his coming. This is not true ; an 
exalted station is an exposure to more danger 
than an obscure one, and wealth has never suc- 
ceeded to buy off calamity. We know very 
well it is not true with us. The toils we go 
through to obtain an eminence — the difficulties 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 127 

we contend with to maintain ourselves upon it, 
are ample proofs that it is not for ease or safety 
that we desire to rise. But who is of the mind 
of Christ 1- When we look upon the condition 
of our country at this moment, we may well 
repeat the question ; for what has brought us to 
it, but inordinate, proud, extravagant desires ? 
— no matter whether for money, for rank, for 
influence, or under the more plausible, but 
misused names of refinement and respectability 
— to be foremost, to be uppermost, to be most, 
to be more than our fathers were, and push our 
children still above ourselves. God, in displea- 
sure surely, has gratified the proud desire to 
the utmost; the upward progress for a time 
was very rapid ; all between the quite highest 
and the quite lowest class, may contrast their 
father's menage with their own, and the former 
of these may convict themselves of no less 
excess in what admitted of advance, though 
their position did not. But the reproof of Heaven 
is gone forth — would that it may prove in 
mercy ! — " Go to, ye rich men, weep and 
howl for the miseries that shall come upon you ; 
your riches are corrupted, and your garments 
are moth-eaten ; your gold and silver is can- 



128 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

kered, and the rust of them shall be a witness 
against you ; they shall eat your flesh as it 
were fire : ye have heaped treasure together 
for the last days. Behold the hire of the 
labourers, who have reaped down your fields^ 
which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth ; 
and the cries of them which have reaped are 
entered into the ears of the Lord of Sa- 
baoth. Ye have lived in pleasure upon the 
earth, and been wanton.'' This is the text. 
If we want the comment, we may hear it 
from every mouth in England. Poverty to the 
rich, hunger to the full, debasement to the 
proud — children grown up in luxury, and made 
delicate by indulgence, reduced to penury, and 
left to the world's pity, or subjected to priva- 
tions and indignities — most painful now, but 
which would have been no hardship had their 
fathers never risen. Who is of the mind of 
Christ ? There would be a remedy even yet, 
if men believed that " they are strangers and 
pilgrims upon earth" — travellers, whom it en- 
cumbers to have much to carry — sojourners, 
who have no abiding city here. This is what 
the Scripture says we are, but men do not think 
so. If they did, we should part from our super^ 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 129 

fluities with as little care, as the j^oung beauty 
puts off at night the gay attire of a festive 
evening, and, nothing less happy, nothing less 
beautiful, assumes in the morning her ordinary 
dress. We should descend with graceful ease 
from the station in which we were born, or to 
which we have been raised, to whatever level 
becomes our altered fortunes, gratefully satis- 
fied to leave our children there. Again, the 
Apostle James might supply the picture, but 
in what altered characters ! " Let the brother 
of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted ; but 
the rich in that he is made low ; because as the 
flower of the grass he shall pass away." 

But the world is of a quite other mind. Fol- 
lowers, so they profess, of Him who had not 
where to lay his head, they can find no place 
high enough for the repose of theirs. Wor- 
shippers, so they say, at the Manger and the 
Cross, no mansion is large enough, no acres 
broad enough, no tables so richly spread, as to 
suffice them. It will do for this year, but we 
must have more the next. A little while— a 
very little — and not that, if we begin not rather 
low — the gain adds something to our innocent 
enjoyments, suppUes a real want, removes a real 



130 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

inconvenience, serves a useful purpose, and in- 
creases our actual happiness ; or would do so, 
- if we could rest contented at that point. But 
desire grows with the increased possession, and 
unsatisfied desire is not happy anywhere. From 
that point forward, the agitating game is played 
for a most unworthy stake — our pride, our 
vanity, our sordid appetites are the only win- 
ners. If our happiness is increased at all, it is 
by the gratification of passions and feelings, 
which it is our duty as Christians to subdue, 
and from which we pray daily to be delivered. 
Every creature is at liberty, nay, is required to 
seek his own good ; but if the great things of 
this world are the Christian's good, God is mis- 
taken. He has abandoned them to his enemies, 
because they are not worthy of his friends — 
He has pronounced many a curse on them, but 
never once a blessing — where is it written, 
Blessed are the rich, blessed are ye that are 
full. And Christ is mistaken : He did not 
choose great things for those that He loved — 
He did not ask wealth and honour of His Fa- 
ther for them, when he left them — He never, 
that we know of, advanced the fortunes of any 
individual while on earth. Once when He saw 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 131 

a rich man whom He loved, He bade him part 
from all. And our church too is mistaken, 
which requires that we take our children to the 
font, at their very entrance into hfe, to renounce 
" the pomps and vanities of the world." Are 
they mistaken, yourselves being judges, or is 
the delusion less than it appears 1 You, who 
through many a painful struggle, possibly 
through many a sin, have risen to consequence, 
do you look back with regret on younger daySj 
when your name was an obscure one, and your 
home a simple one, and your healthful spirit 
enjoyed as an indulgence, all that exceeded 
your necessities ? Or you, whose happiness is 
made up of opinion, of what men think of your 
condition, your style, your connexions, your 
importance — do you, when your company is 
gone, and your chamber-door is shut, think 
wishfully of those whose happiness is independ- 
ent of opinion, who are too humble, or too 
simple, or too heavenly-minded, to care for the 
world's thinkings !■ I have some suspicion of it» 
There have been traitors even in Satan's king- 
dom, who have betrayed its secrets. But you 
say that you are Christ's, and live by his exam- 



132 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

pie ; then I am sure you are not made happy 
by things which he despised. 

It will be said, it is a needless question what 
we ought to choose, when we cannot choose at 
all. Our station in life is appointed by our 
Maker, and our subsequent fortunes are in his 
hands. But we must remember, that a man's 
heart deviseth his way, though the Lord di- 
recteth his steps ; and the state of his heart 
may be judged by his desires, whether they be 
prospered or defeated. There is much in our 
condition that is entirely of God, and not of 
the will of man — I wish it were that part with 
which we are best satisfied. If it be an ex- 
alted station, it would be as rebellious to de- 
scend from it, as from a lower to aspire to it. If 
it be in abundance, it would be as ungrateful not 
to enjoy it, as to complain when we have it not. 
The chief who leads an army to the battle, the 
insignia of nobility about him, is not to doff 
his dangerous distinctions and seek for safety 
in the rear. Every Christian should know, 
every one who is like-minded with his Lord 
does know, that distinctions are not desirable ; 
and the more he has of them the better he 
knows it, whether they be talents, wealth, or 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 133 

name. To such a one, they are not a source 
of pride or exaltation. I will say, for I be- 
lieve it, that they are a source of humility and 
selfabasement. I believe a child of God, 
whose mind is as it should be, is never reminded 
of his powers or his possessions, but his heart 
sinks within him under a sense of his unwor- 
thiness, and the deep responsibility that is upon 
him, testifying to himself at least, that he did 
not choose it. Like most of the genuine traces 
of the Christian character, this is a hidden fea- 
ture. He wears his honours, and uses his gifts, 
and men drop as usual their congratulations; 
but they cannot know with how different a 
sound they fall upon his ear, from that which 
they produce on others. God can alone distin- 
guish at such moments, between the inflated 
bosom with its " I thank thee" that I am gifted 
mora than others, and the shrinking modesty 
that can only whisper " be merciful" to my in- 
adequate return. Who but God would have 
known, had He not told it us, the different emo- 
tions of one royal bosom looking down from 
the ramparts of Babylon, and of another, when 
he asked, " Who am I, O Lord God, and what 
is my house ?'' 

12 



134 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

But our responsibility is greater than it first 
appears. The circumstances of birth are much ; 
and constitutional differences of character are 
much; and God overrules the current of our 
destiny. But from the moment of our entrance 
into life, other agency begins to work upon our 
fortunes. For awhile it is the parent's respon- 
sibility, and the Christian parent does as much 
prove the likeness of his judgment to the judg- 
ment of his Lord, in the choice he makes for 
his children, as for himself: perhaps more, for 
he looks upon life then with its tried value full 
before him, and should have added knowledge 
to his faith. The choice of the heavenly 
Father for his children, of the elder brother for 
his new-born brethren, is the pattern by which to 
regulate our desires for those whose fortunes 
are in a measure within our influence. And 
we should remember that in the case of our 
children, we lose the commonest, and, I think, 
the most valid pleas that are made use of to 
excuse our own inordinate desires. We plead 
for ourselves that habit is necessity, that to 
want what we are accustomed to, however 
artificial be the want, is an actual suffering ; 
and however happy we might have been, if 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 135 

originally placed on a lower grade, it is reason- 
ably painful to sink below those with whom we 
have stood equal. This is quite true ; and our 
heavenly Father, who has appointed degrees 
and differences in the constitution of society, 
knoweth that we have need of these things, and 
is considerate of the pain we suffer in our 
privations ; though it may be, and very often is, 
that cutting off of the right-hand of a jealous 
tenaciousness, or casting away of the right eye 
of a fastidious delicacy, by which we are forci- 
bly separated from our pride and earthliness for 
the sanctification of our souls. But when we 
look forward to the destiny of our new-born 
children, and begin to form their habits, and 
give a bias to their minds, and devise schemes 
for their future establishment, it is then that our 
value for the things of earth is freely manifested 
whether or not we be like minded with our 
Lord. It rests with us to save them from the 
very necessity we plead as an excuse for what 
our better principle condemns, by giving them 
simple habits, moderate desires, and a just 
estimate of what constitutes the greatness and 
happiness of a child of God, of an heir of 
heaven in the days of his minority ; choosing a 



136 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

Station for them rather below than above what 
they might by possibility attain. 

And then how soon after our days of infancy 
are passed, do our aspirings after this world's 
good begin to act upon our conduct? The 
God of this world has so brilliant a hierarchy, 
his votaries call things by such delusive names, 
and the things themselves are so inviting to 
the sense, inexperience would be at a loss to 
estimate their real value, had the word of God 
not distinctly made it known. But the Word 
has made it known, and if we do not know it, 
it is because we will not receive this testimony 
of the word. We have an example ; and if 
we mistake it is because we will not follow our 
example. It is a common saying, that men 
must buy their experience ; and a truer one, 
that experience comes too late. But ii they 
must it is because they will believe nothing, 
even upon divine authority, Sufficiently cre- 
dulous are they notwithstanding, of the promises 
of him who is the father of lies. He disappoints 
them of the promised good, or disappoints ihem 
in it; but he can promise still, and they can 
still believe, and for the yet unsatisfied there is 
always another step on fortune's scale. The 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 137 

same temptation was offered to our Lord— "All 
these things will I give thee." When the 
desire to be, or to have, arises in our hearts, do 
we deal with Nature's whisper as He v^nth the 
suggestion of the tempter, by a reference to 
Scripture and the will of God ? It tells us, 
"He filleth the hungry with good things, and 
sendeth the rich empty away." He putteth 
down the mighty from their seats, and exalteth 
the humble and meek. It tells us, God has 
chosen the weak things of the world to con- 
found the things that are mighty, and base 
things of the world, and things that are de- 
spised hath God chosen, and things that are not, 
to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh 
should glory in his presence." With graphic 
clearness it places before our eyes the two 
extremes of human destiny, each one in posses- 
sion of his own good things — doubtless the 
things that in his lifetime he esteemed most 
good. It shows us the first Adam in the height 
of prosperity, Lord of all that he beheld, 
possessed of the w^orld's good things, when 
they were good indeed, falHng on the first 
temptation by desire for something more. And 
after him, all who are moulded in his likeness, 
12* 



138 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

Lot exposing himself to the sin and to the doom 
of Sodom, because of the rich pasture and well 
watered plains. Israel forgetting in their pleas- 
ant lands the lessons of their long adversity. 
Solomon, the Lord's anointed, corrupting him- 
self in possession, with the very greatness he 
had been once too wise to ask. The rich man 
leaving Christ because he had too much of 
earth to leave for Him. All men, as St. Paul 
expresses it seeking their own, and not the 
things of Christ ; exposing themselves to temp- 
tations, loading their consciences with sin, and 
piercing themselves through with many sor- 
rows, because they will be rich, be great, be 
somebody, be something. On the other hand, 
the Scripture exhibits to us Christ, the second 
Adam, choosing lowliness as the fittest state in 
which to recover what the first in his plenitude 
had lost; to triumph in adversity, as he in 
prosperity had fallen : making himself the 
servant of all ; and because he so humbled him- 
self, God hath highly exalted Him above every 
creature. And it shows us those who are 
renewed after his likeness, doing all the same 
thing. Moses preferring adversity with the 
people of God to the riches and royalty of 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 139 

Egypt ; Abraham leaving all that he had, to go 
out, he knew not whither ; and those many, of 
whom the world was not worthy, who held its 
greatness for nothing, and its wealth for dross, 
^' confessing they were strangers and pilgrims 
on earth." 

There has been seen from that time forward 
the likeness of both — in the likeness of on 3 or 
the other all men lnust be found. There are 
the rich and the poor, the prosperous and the 
afflicted, the high-born and the base, the rising 
and the sinking ; but the line that separates 
these though it were better defined than it is, 
could never separate the image ^of the first 
Adam from the image of the second ; the lowly 
from the proud, the earth-renouncing from the 
earth-aspiring. There is a line visible from 
the heights of heaven, whether we upon earth 
can distinguish it or not. On one side of it are 
those who, be they what they may, would still 
be something more, or seem to be something 
that they are not ; who cannot enjoy what they 
have because their desires exceed it, and cannot 
be grateful because they are not satisfied. 
There are those who aro ashamed of a position 
which their Master chose, or proud of one which 



140 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE, 

He refused to occupy ; and in spite of all God^s 
declarations to the contrary, persist in account- 
ing the proud happy and their end honourable. 
These are all, who by their language when 
they cannot act, and by their actions when they 
can, by the dreams of their heads upon their 
pillows and the devices of their hearts at mid- 
night, evince to their Maker that they are not 
of his mind, nor of the mind of Him who 
chose to be the least ; and in spite of his w^ord, 
and in spite of his example, and in spite very 
often of their own bitter experience, are resolved 
to pursue after, or if they can do no more, to 
long after, the things the world calls great. 
On the other side this hne of separation, there 
are some, born indeed in the similitude of 
Adam, but changed by grace into the image 
and spirit of Christ. They have not changed 
their station, they are not at liberty to do so, 
unless God does it for them; but they have 
changed their mind. They have broken the 
scale by which this world's good was mea- 
sured, and taken the word of God to measure 
it by instead. Their vain imaginings have 
ceased, and the devices of their hearts are 
changed. The grasping hand is unloosed ; the 



IN THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 141 

heart lets go its hold ; the foot of pursuit is 
slackened. If there are none who have come 
to the full mind of Christ, which 1 cannot say 
tliere are not, that it is best to be least, and 
safest to be last, and happiest to be nothing, 
there are many who are hasting towards it, 
having more fear than value of the world's dis- 
tinctions, do not admire them, do not seek them, 
would rather not have them. But he is bold, 
who ventures to say it in the world's presence — 
followers all of Christ, and led, as they say, by 
his example, but so much astonished at a sem- 
blance of his spirit, or an echo of his words, 
there is small chance of escaping an incredulous 
laugh or a contemptuous sneer. Reason too, 
as usual, has a word to say : it talks of the 
increased power of doing good. That were a 
good miotive, if it were a true one ; but our 
hearts deceive us if we think so. Before we 
desire more means of doing good, we must be 
sure we have done all the good possible with 
the means we have. Till then, a righteous 
spirit will shrink from the increased responsi- 
bility. And then, be it remembered, that Jesus 
was not of this mind ; he neither chose to be 



142 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

great, nor to be rich, in order to do good ; neither 
did He choose wealth or greatness for his in- 
struments. 

Is it said that our position is not like Christ's ? 
He was a God, and could not want means to 
do his good. It is not to be supposed that He 
who had been partner of the Father's throne, 
should value the distinctions of this poor world. 
There is something almost ridiculous in the 
supposition. What should the Lord of glory 
want with the honours and pride of this life ? 
The thought seems absurd — it is absurd ; but 
what miserable pretenders then are we ! How 
does our unbelief betray itself! Are not we 
too the heirs of celestial glory ? Are we not 
expectants of a heavenly crown ? Are we not 
preparing in as short a space as He was, for a 
destiny so great, so blessed, that in comparison 
with it the distinctions and possessions of this 
world, are really no more to us than they were 
to Him ? Are not we likewise sons and daugh- 
ters of the Most High, too great to be exalted 
or debased by any condition here, or any thoughts 
that men may have of us ? We say so, but sui:e. 
]y such arguments belie our faith 



m THE CONDITION OF LIFE. 149 

One word before I close, with reference to 
the commencement of this chapter. Our Crea- 
tor has distributed his gifts unequally : as the 
distribution affects this life, there is so much to 
counterbalance what seems the good and evil 
of each condition, the amount is perhaps less 
unequal than it seems ; and whatever it is, life 
is so short it does not signify. But there are cir- 
cumstances which seem to mfluence our future 
destiny ; and it is impossible to deny that our 
spiritual advantages are unequal. Let no man 
enter into controversy with his Maker. '' Let 
not the thing formed say to him that formed 
it, Why hast thou made me thus ?" He owes 
no man any thing ; what he gives is no debt ; 
what he withholds is no robbery. But before 
we measure this inequahty, and calculate the 
proportion of our spiritual advantages, there 
is a long account to cast, which will greatly 
affect the balance, and bring upon ourselves 
the responsibility we are so willing to lay upon 
our Maker. If by choosing for ourselves and 
ours, otherwise than Christ chose for himself 
and his, with his example before us, and his 
word in our hands^ we have brought ourselves 



144 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

into temptation, exposed ourselves to evil 
influences, or deprived ourselves of spiritual 
opportunity, the responsibility is wholly ours. 
We can bring no charge against our circum- 
stances, nor impeach the dispensations of 
Providence. 



CHAPTER VI. 



IN HIS SORROWS. 



*• Take up the cross and foUowmeJ^ Mark x. 21. 

"Man that is bom of a woman is of few days 
and full of trouble. '^ " All his days are sor- 
rows, and his travail grief.'' '' Because thou 
hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and 
hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded 
thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it : cursed is 
the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou 
eat of it all the days of thy life." This is a 
fact which no one can deny, with the only 
explanation that ever has been given. No one 
can deny the fact : and if they deny the explana- 
tion, they can substitute no other in its stead. 
13 



146 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

Infidelity may reject, and folly may despise tlie 
narrative of the fall, and treat affliction as if it 
came forth of the dust, and sorrow as if it sprang- 
out of the ground ; but no man has attempted 
to deny that he is born to sorrow as the sparks 
fly upward. What is the history of the world 
but a continued comment on this primeval 
curse ? From Jacob, who in the simplicity of 
patriarchal life, looked back upon his years^ 
and found them few and evil ; to the king of 
Israel, who, in the plenitude of luxury and 
knowledge, declared there was nothing but sor- 
row under the sun ; from the secret complaint of 
the captive, obscurely carved upon his prison 
walls,, to the suicidal stroke of the hero that 
becomes an item in the tables of chronology ;. 
what is the history of man but a developement of 
this bad beginning ? In every chronicler's story 
— in every poet's song — in every philosopher's 
argument, sorrow^ is the longest and most inter- 
esting chapter,, for it is that which finds a response 
in every human bosom. And the world has sub- 
sisted now six thousand years, and man has found- 
no remedy ; the sentence is not remitted — his sor- 
rows are not diminished. Experience has per- 
fected his faculties and increased bis powers — a 



IN HIS SORROWS. 147 

tliousand inventions and discoveries have added 
CO his natural capabihties ; improvements of 
•every kind — the growth of arts — the increase of 
knowledge — the experience of accumulated ages, 
all is indicative of progress to the present time ; 
in one thing only there is no progression — ^man 
has found no defence, no security from sorrow ; 
every new source of enjoyment has opened a 
fresh inlet of suffering to the heart, but never a 
weapon to defend the entry. Parents still see 
their children break their hearts and die. Chil- 
dren still see th« gray hairs of their parents 
brought with sorrow to the grave. The most 
gifted, the most admired of men still rush des- 
perately into eternity, because they cannot bear 
the weight of misery that is upon them. Never, 
perhaps, was there so much suffering in the 
world as at the present time, when contrivance 
has exhausted itself to increase our means and 
pov/ers of enjoyment. We " go out one way 
•against the enemy, and flee before him seven 
ways." The art that removes one danger intro- 
duces another ; science outroots an old disease 
and a new one takes its place. " That which 
>the palmer-worm hath left, hath the locust 
eaten ; and that which the locust hath left, hath 



148 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

the canker-worm eaten; and that which the 
canker-worm hath left, hath the caterpillar eat- 
en." Man may turn the current of his sorrows, 
but he cannot lessen them. And when we con- 
sider thisj together with the extraordinary powers 
over nature, which he seems to possess, there is 
no way of understanding it, the researches of 
philosophy, the observation of ages have found 
no way of accounting for it, but by those revealed 
words — " In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the 
days of thy life." We may say to the unbe- 
liever. If it is not so, how is it ? And if he were 
honest he would own his mouth is closed. He 
who pronounces the curse can alone explain it ; 
and no remedy can be found for it but that which 
has proceeded whence the curse was issued : 
none has prevailed to lighten it but He who laid 
it on. 

Of the cup thus filled for all men, there was 
one who drank so ^much more deeply than the 
rest ; he has been emphatically called " the 
man of sorrows," as if there were no other. 
" His face was more marred than any man's." 
" He hath no form or comeliness ; and when 
we shall see him, no beauty that we should 
desire him. He is despised and rejected of men 



IN HIS SORROWS. 149 

— a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; 
and we hid as it were our faces from him ; he 
was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely 
he hath borne our griefs and carried our sor- 
rows ; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten 
of God and afflicted." " He was oppressed and 
he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth ; he 
is brought as a lamb to the slaughter ; and as a 
sheep before his shearers is dumb, so he openeth 
not his mouth. He was taken from prison and 
from judgment, and who shall declare his gene- 
ration ; for he was cut off from the land of the 
living." Born under the curse and imputation 
of sin, the Son of God was made liable to every 
sorrow to which sin has subjected us, except the 
consciousness of having committed it, and the 
pain proceeding from its actual commission. 
These, it is evident he could not feel. The 
writhing of wounded pride, the yearnings of 
unsatisfied ambition, the blank of bereaved idola- 
try, the bitterness of remorse, and the chill of 
deserved shame — these and the thousand scor- 
pion stings with which sin torments the bosom 
it inhabits, a pure and holy being could not 
feel. Do they, whose draughts of bitterness 
are thus compounded, believe it is the Saviour's 
13* " 



150 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

cup they drink of? As Christ was man, every 
thing that is innocently gratifying to human 
sense, must have been gratifying to his, and the 
privation of it consequently painful, had these 
things not been rendered indifferent to him by the 
nobler occupations of his spirit. In reference 
to the demands of nature, He explains his indif- 
ference thus : — " My meat and drink is to do the 
will of him that sent me." So in respect of 
those feelings to which, by the very perfection 
of his humanity, he must have been liable. He 
could not be insensible to the ties of natural af- 
fection — that would have been an imperfection 
in his human character ; when, therefore, he 
disowns those best feelings of our nature, and 
asks " Who is my mother, and who are my 
brethren ?" he thus explains himself : the 
stronger tie that bound him to the spiritual 
family of his Father in heaven, absorbed and 
superseded his natural attachments, and placed 
him beyond the reach of those sorrows that 
result from our earthly connexions. At least 
there is no mention in Scripture of his having 
suffered any such. And though these are 
legitimate sufferings to us, the more our afFec- 



IN HIS SORROWS. 151 

tions are detached from earth, as his were, the 
less we are exposed to suffer from them. 

Excepting his fast in the wilderness, we are 
not told to what corporal sufferings Jesus was 
exposed previous to his condemnation to a pain- 
ful death. In all beings the capability of suffer- 
ing seems proportioned to the other powers. 
From the bare sensation of the scarcely living 
Zoophite, through the rising gradations of 
animal existence, to the acute perceptions of 
man; and from man, animalized, unrefined, 
uneducated, to the intense sensibiHties of the 
most exalted natures ; the power to suffer keeps 
pace, I believe, with the mental capacity. By 
what measure, then, can we calculate the 
sufferings of our Lord ? As much greater than 
those of any mere mortal could be under like 
circumstances, as his nature was more exalted 
and refined. How much they were still further 
increased by the connexion of that nature with 
deity, we can still less estimate. He had only 
human language to express it in, and that was 
insufficient. It says all it can say indicative of 
the bodily suffering that attends on mental 
anguish. "I am poured out like water ; all 
my bones are out of joint." " My strength is 



152 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

dried up like a potsherd, and my tongvie cleav- 
eth to my jaws." 

Bodily sufferings, which form so large a por- 
tion of the primeval curse upon our race, can 
have no connexion, in themselves, with our 
conformity to the image of Christ. As expiatory 
they are useless : his only could atone for sin. 
As voluntary they are not required at our hands. 
As laid on us by providence in judgment or in 
mercy, it is neither sinful to feel, nor meritorious 
to endure them. Any conformity to our Lord's 
example required of us in respect of these, 
must be sought for in the spirit with which 
they are received and borne ; with reference to 
which we may observe, that these were not the 
sorrows Jesus felt the most. He makes but 
little complaint of them, and that little was 
between himself and God: in the gospel nar- 
rative there is none. 

Twice in the narrative of Jesus' life, we are 
told by those who saw him that He wept. 
Observe the occasion of his tears : on neither 
time did he shed them for himself. The one 
occasion (John xi. 35.) exhibits the exquisite 
sympathy, the extreme sensitiveness with which 
Jesus regards the sorrows of his people. lie 



IN HIS SORROWS. 163 

knew the mourning of that beloved family 
would be soon turned into joy. He knew what 
He was about to do. ^ut they did not know ; 
and his sensibility yielded to the impression of 
their transient sorrow. A beautiful representa- 
tion of what He is in heaven : touched with 
the feeling of our infirmities, while he delays 
to remove them — mourning with us, w^hile He 
waits to be gracious^sharing, every present 
sorrow, while preparing to change it into ever- 
lasting joy. 

On another occasion, (Luke xix. 41,) Jesus 
looked upon Jerusalem and wept, not for her 
calamities then, but for her sins. There were 
sickness and want, and misery, in her streets, 
and He had shown no slowness to relieve them ; 
but it was not for these He wept ; it was for the 
iniquity of his people. As in another place 
it is written — " Rivers of water run down 
mine eyes, because men keep not thy laws." 
These were not selfish mournings. His own 
sorrows were kept for his own bosom, or poured 
in secret into his father's ear; we find no 
expression of them to those about him till the 
time of his latest agony. In these secret out- 
pourings of his holy sou], we read at once the 



154 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

depth and the character of his sufferings ; exter- 
nally, thej may seem no more than other 
men's ; the secret of their intenseness was 
within: in the purity and exaltation of the 
^oul that was to bear them— in the spiritual 
nature of the inflictions, and their undeserved- 
ness, so abhorrent to his high and holy nature 
— in the mental anguish of imputed sin and 
divine abandonment — in that power of unlimit- 
ed suffering derived from his own infinity : 
these were the hidden depths of the Redeemer's 
sorrow. Men think lightly of it, because they 
think lightly of him. They think of him only 
as a man : other men have been scorned and 
buffeted — other men have been tortured and 
put to death unjustly — martyrs have been seen 
to bear as much as this ; — or they think of him 
only as God, deriving from his Deity such 
support as left him little more than a fictitious 
rehearsal of sorrow. He was too great to feel. 
How false an estimate ! His pure manhood 
made him susceptible of the faintest touch of 
evil, to which the noblest natures must ever be 
the most averse : his godhead made him capa- 
ble of suffering it to an infinite extent. In 
finite being, suffering has a limit — a limit that 



IN HIS SORROWS. 155 

has been reached, but never passed. Men have 
touched the point at either end, where sorrow 
ceased to be painful, and joy ceased to be en- 
joyed, because it exceeded their capacity to 
feel : as objects approaching the eye too nearly^ 
by their very magnitude become invisible. 
The man Christ Jesus only had an unlimited 
power to feel and capability to endure, that his 
sufferings might be sufficient to expiate the sins 
of the whole world. No one can enter into the 
nature of his passion but those who know what 
spiritual sorrows are — the greatne^^s of it none 
can estimate. It is in the former only his peo- 
ple's can resemble his : let us consider it in his 
own words. 

" My God, my God, look upon me : why 
hast thou forsaken me, and art so far from my 
health, and from the words of my complaint ? 
O my God, I cry in the daytime and thou 
hearest not : and in the night season also I take 
no rest. And thou continuest holy, O thou 
worship of Israel. Our fathers hoped in thee. 
They trusted in thee, and thou didst deliver 
them. They called upon thee, and were holpen. 
They put their trust in thee, and were not con- 
founded. But as for me, I am a worm, and no 
man : a very scorn of men, and the outcast of 



156 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

the people. All that see me laugh me to 
scorn : they shoot out their lips, and shake 
their heads, saying he trusted in God that He 
would deliver him : let him deliver him if He 
will have him. O go not far from me, for 
trouble is nigh at hand, and there is none to 
help me." Such language needs no comment 
— it admits of none. If we have experienced 
what it is to feel as if forsaken of God when 
we have put our whole trust in him ; to cry 
day and night to him and receive no answer ; 
to remember how others have been helped when 
they prayed, while we remain confounded ; to 
be abandoned, perhaps taunted, by those who 
should have given us support, and triumphed 
over by Satan and our spiritual enemies, ex- 
ulting in our seeming abandonment; nature 
sinking, the strength failing, the body wasting 
upon the rack of mental anguish ; — if we have 
felt this, we may perhaps conceive — no, it is not 
possible, mere mortaUty can form no idea of 
the agonies of that holy Being in his time of 
separation and abandonment. Every kind of 
sorrow had been accumulated upon his head — 
his enemies were triumphing around him-— his 
own people were bringing the curse of his 
blood upon themselves and their children ; of 



IN HIS SORROWS. 157 

those who had been his famihar friends, wit- 
nesses of all his works that He had done, one 
had betrayed him, and one denied him, and the 
rest had forsaken him and fled. All this had 
drawn no audible complaining from his lips. 
One anguish only was too much to be suppressed 
' — " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
me 1" When it came to that there was nothing 
to be added — sorrow had reached its utmost— 
the expiation was perfected. He said, " It is 
finished," and departed. 

Has conscience spoken while we read ? Has 
memory flown back through all our days of 
sorrow, and numbered our by-gone tears, to find 
how many of them fell for causes such as these ? 
how many for man's destruction ? — how many 
for God's outraged laws and his averted coun- 
tenance ? — how many for our sins ? Christ 
requires those who would come after him, to 
take up their cross and follow him. St. Paul 
speaks of believers as " planted together in 
the likeness of his death ;" and of himself he 
says, '' That I may know him and the power 
of this resurrection, and the fellowship of his 
sufferings, being made conformable to his 
death ;" and St. Peter, " Forasmuch then as 
14 



158 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm 
yourselves hkewise with the same mind : for 
he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased' 
from sin." And again, "Because Christ also 
suffered for us, leaving us an example." And 
God has promised that if we suffer we shall 
also reign with him. 

Respecting this sorrow which characterises 
the people of God, begetting in them a feature 
of likeness to their blessed Lord, there have 
been many and great mistakes : but this cannot 
abrogate the word of God, that there should 
be no such thing, or that it should not be 
required of his people, [t is not for man's 
perversions to deprive the word of God of 
mecining, and leave it an empty letter. From 
the Papist who subjects himself to inflictions- 
God has not imposed, in order to expiate his 
sins or earn rewards in heaven, to the Pro- 
testant who vaguely fancies that what he is 
made to suffer here is at least subtracted from 
his punishment hereafter, the Scripture has 
been many ways perverted on this point. It 
makes one shrink to hear thoughtless people 
say, " This thing or that thing is my cross." 
" We have all our cross.'* No, we have not 



IN HIS SORROWS. 159 

all a cross : if we had, we should all hereafter 
have a crown. Your curse it may be, but it 
is not your cross, unless it be suffered in Christ 
Jesus. The sorrows of the natural man are a 
part of, and not instead of, that primeval curse, 
and must remain a curse in all their progress, 
as well as in their issue, unless redeeming grace 
convert the whole to good, making of the 
sorrow a blessing, and of the curse a cross 
indeed, though not a meritorious one. No one's 
can be that but the Son of God's : for his only 
was voluntary, undeserved, and unalloyed with 
evil. If there is one sin out-standing in the 
book of God against us, of which his suffering 
has not purchased the remission, no suffering 
of ours will ever blot it out. If there is one 
eternal blessing not already purchased for us 
by his passion, no endurance of ours will ever 
buy it. It is for a quite different purpose we 
are to be conformed to the likeness of his 
death. 

There are two distinct sources then of human 
son'ow. The curse of Adam and the cross of 
Christ. Jesus bore them both. If we are his 
people we must bear them both — the one 
because we bear the image of the earthly Adam, 



160 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

the other because we must also bear the image 
of the heavenly : the one in fellowship with all 
mankind, the other in union with the members 
of Christ's mystical body, the church militant 
upon earth. But we must not m^istake them. 
In the world, generally, men sorrow after the 
similitude of Adam, not after the similitude of 
Christ. This St. Paul signifies, when he says, 
" The sorrow of the world worketh death." 
(2 Cor. vii. 9.) Some suffering we all have : it 
would be good for us to compare it with the 
suffering of our Lord. If we are still the 
victims of the curse — still dying that miserable 
death the apostle speaks of, it would be well to 
be aware of our condition. If we have 
exchanged it for that " godly sorrow which 
worketh repentance to salvation," we shall not 
find reason to regard it with feelings of self- 
complacency, as something propitiatory in the 
eyes of God. 

The springs of natural sorrow are so num- 
berless, so inexplicable, it is impossible to lay 
them open. And when the origin is the same, 
the streams flow so diverse through each separate 
bosom, no man is competent to unfold another's 
wo. There are what are called external 



IN HIS SORROWS. 161 

ills, such as the loss of property, the tearing 
asunder of domestic ties, sickness, poverty, 
disgrace, and injury, and a thousand more, 
which most men can appreciate. But beneath 
all these, more deeply buried and more deeply 
felt, unknown and unappreciated, are the indi- 
vidual sorrows of each separate bosom. We 
cannot reach them ; perhaps we could not un- 
derstand them if we did. " The heart knoweth 
its own bitterness." To the heart therefore we 
commit it, of each one in particular, to examine 
the source and character of his own sorrows, 
and compare them with those of our Lord. 
We can but speak generally — conscience must 
make the application. In this general view, 
how much of earthly suffering must be marked 
off at once, as the offspring of wilful and 
indulged sin ! There is the voluptuary's sorrow 
for his ruined health ; the gamester's sorrow 
for his wasted fortunes ; the swindler's sorrow 
in his detected frauds ; the tyrant's sorrow in 
defeat and deposition ; with the thousand lesser 
penalties that follow lesser crimes. And then 
there are the stirrings of ungodly passions, when 
roused ^bj^ external crimes, to be the torment of 
the bosom they inhabit. Self-love, ambition, 
14* 



162 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

avarice, pride, resentment — what a host ! any 
one of which, wounded by an adverse weapon 
from without, can put the soul to torture. It 
is needless to say these pangs of unrepented sin 
are not our cross : the stamping of the curse is 
plain upon them : there were jjone like them 
in the Saviour's bosom. That sentence which 
passed upon the natural soil, fell doubly heavy 
on the soil within us. Thorns and briars has 
it borne from thence till now : grace may root 
them out, but cannot change their fruits. Jesus 
felt them when they were gathered to bind 
about his brow, but they never grew in his own 
holy bosom. 

Of natural sorrow there is besides an incalcu- 
lable sum, not brought upon us by our personal 
sins. It is the consequence and the desert 
of sin, as every evil is, but it would not be on 
that account unlike to Christ's : for his was 
the desert and consequence of sin imputed to 
him. And yet it forms no portion of our cross. 
Sorrow for the privation of some earthly good, 
or the blighting of some earthly expectation — 
sorrow from sympathy with the temporal ills 
of others — from the unkindness of earthly 
friends, or injuries that cannot reach beyond 



IN HIS SORROWS. 163 

the grave, or any other that has earth for its 
source, and earth for its object, and earth for 
its termination. These are legitimate sorrows : 
they come from God : they are the fulfiUing of 
his revealed purpose — " In sorrow shalt thou 
eat of it all the days of thy life." These are 
the things of which Solomon says the one event 
happeneth to the just and the unjust. They are 
not sinful to suffer or to feel, but they are 
essentially of earth. One who denies his Saviour 
and defies his God, must likewise share them, 
so that they can be no evidence of our union 
with Christ. They are not suffered for his 
sake, or occasioned by our love of him, or of 
the Father, by care for the souls of others or 
our own. There needs a great and mysterious 
change to convert these natural sorrows into 
the cross of Christ. Some of them He did 
indeed endure: but the bitterness that is in 
them may differ in character while the source 
appears the same. When Jesus speaks of 
enemies, he complains of them as the enemies 
of his soul ; when of injuries, it is of the out- 
rages committed on his Father's laws; when 
of insults, it is as offered to the Deity manifested 
in him. Whether mourning for the griefs 



164 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

of Others, or his own, it is the thought of sin 
that gives bitterness to his complaint. They 
who have drunk deep of the world's sorrow, 
know whether there has been any such ingre- 
dient in the cup — whether it has been aggra- 
vated by one such thought, embittered by one 
such feeling. It may have been so. We may 
in time of trial have been more jealous for 
God's honour than our own — more watchful 
of our spiritual than our temporal safety — and 
more sorry for the sin of the evil-doers, than 
for the wrong inflicted on ourselves. Spiritual 
sorrows may, in a greater or less degree, have 
mixed with our earthly ones, and given them 
a diviner character ; so that in them, though 
Dot by them, we, have borne the image of our 
Lord. 

I can suppose that many an honest mind, 
not wishing to be deceived or take its dross 
for gold, is doubting at this moment where the 
similitude is to be looked for, whether it 
really exists, in any human bosom. They know 
many excelleni, and as they think, religious 
men, whom they never heard complain of 
other griefs than are common to all mankind : 
which yet we have shown to bear little resem- 



IN HIS SORROWS. 165 

blance to the cross of Christ: surely it is in 
V£iin to look for conformity anywhere, if such 
men have it not. To every honest mind that 
reasons thus, we must reply, " Let God be 
true, and every man a har :" the witness of 
God's word must be taken against the testi- 
mony of the best of men, if they should be 
found in opposition. And the language of the 
Scriptures upon this point is peculiarly strong. 
They speak of being crucified with Christ — of 
dying with him — of being buried with him. 
This cannot be otherwise understood than as 
requiring a conformity to his suffering, in the 
character of our own. A literal crucifixion is 
not to be supposed. A few persons there have 
been appointed thereto : and we fancy it less 
difficult to trace in these the required conformi- 
ty. But by no means is it exclusively, or even 
prominently, manifested by acts of martyrdom. 
It is the spirit and the motive only that makes 
these a cross ; for a man may give his body to 
be burnt, and yet be nothing : and the same 
spirit and motive will impart a like character 
to every other suffering. But as these were 
not the ills of which the Man of Sorrows most 
complained, so neither are they the severest his 



166 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

people bear in union with him. When Paul 
was in prison and in chains he sang : when he 
wept, and " mourned in spirit," and " was 
grieved," it was for very different causes. 

The days of martyrdom are passed. Not so 
the word of God. The requirements of his 
gospel, and the fruits of his Spirit, are not 
changed. Wherever there is a heart that is 
his, there the restoring of Christ's image is 
begun ; and faint and insufficient as the traces 
are, there is the likeness of his own griefs. If 
we could lay open the believer's bosom to the 
world, this would be at once apparent. They 
would find it occupied with sorrow so unlike 
their own, so like their Saviour's : they might 
despise them both, but could not deny they 
were the same. This we cannot do : and lan- 
guage can ill convey ideas of unknown feeling. 
It must wait that " manifestation of the sons of 
God," perhaps not very distant, when every 
member of his family will be recognized by 
features of resemblance, obscured and mistaken 
here. The child of God need not be too care- 
ful to prove his pretensions now : he should be 
careful rather of this — are they there ? They 
must exist, or they never can be manifested : 



, IN HIS SORROWS. 167 

they cannot be acquired in the grave, neither in 
heaven. 

The greatest affliction Jesus knew, was the 
privation of God's presence. *' My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" It is so to 
the believer. When he has once perceived the 
delight of spiritual communion with his Maker, 
and the shining of God's countenance upon his 
soul, the loss of it is insupportable. His spirit 
can take no rest : he walks as in midnight dark- 
ness. '^ He seeks him on the right hand, and 
he is not there; on the left, where he doth work, 
but cannot find him." He may know what has 
provoked his Father to withdraw, or he may 
not. Perhaps he doubts if he will return, or 
perhaps he does not. It is all the same — Jesus 
knew all, yet he could not endure the absence. 
Neither can the believer : he may hold fast his- 
faith, and yet be more intensely miserable than- 
any earthly loss could make him ; a misery 
proportioned to his love, and past experience of 
God's presence : small in degree, therefore,- 
compared with Christ's ; but still the same in 
kind. " Mine eyes fail while I wait for my 
God." '' There is no soundness in my flesh^. 
because of thine anger." '' I cried unto thee, 



168 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

and thou didst not hear ; I called unto thee, and 
thou didst not answer." " Why standest thou 
afar off, O Lord ? why hidest thou thyself in 
the time of trouble ?" '' I will say unto God^ 
my rock, why hast thou forgotten me ?" This 
was the language of Christ, and it is that of 
his people in seasons of spiritual darkness. It 
is no overwrought effusion of the psalmist's 
muse. It is not, as it seems to be to those that 
never felt it, the conventional language attached 
to a certain profession of religion. It is what 
passes in secret between every true believer . 
and his God. Unconnected with, as it is unlike 
to every earthly sorrow, it may be suffered amid 
the^ abundance of this world's good, impotent 
to shed one ray of comfort upon the mourning 
spirit. All earth is nothing — all heaven itself 
would be nothing to the child of God without 
the presence of his Father, when he has once 
discovered what it is. Perhaps some will ask, 
Does God really forsake his people ? Are not 
these sufferings an evidence of the weakness of 
our faith ? 

It matters little to the anguish of them how 
they are produced ; and come whence they 
may, none but a child of God can feel them : for 



IN HIS SORROWS. 169 

none but he will ever miss his Father. But I 
think they are not a proof of want of faith. 
They originate, I conceive, in some defection 
on our part — some coldness of devotion or care- 
lessness of life — some voluntary exposure to 
temptation and ungodly influence, neglect of 
spiritual exercises, or undue compromise with 
the world. By such means God is provoked 
to withdraw his countenance from us for a 
season, that we may feel our misery and be 
reproved. But in the season of darkness that 
ensues, when in anguish of spirit we seek God 
and cannot find him, faith may be very strong ; 
stronger, perhaps, than at any moment of our 
lives. Never is it put to so severe a proof, as 
when without any consciousness of God's 
presence, or sensible enjoyment of his love, we 
still trust him — still confidently call him Father. 
In such an hour as this the triumph of our 
Redeemer's faith was 'perfected. Why should 
that prove the weakness of our faith, which 
proved the strength of his ? Let not the suffer- 
ing believer think so. If we did not love him, 
we should not miss him — if we did not believe 
in him, we should not cry after him. The 
return of such seasons, when we have tried 
15 



ITO CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

their bitterness, will ever be our greatest dread f 
but they should bring with them no despondency ^ 
and in the remembrance of them there is much 
encouragement. In paths so dark as these, there 
is yet light enough to trace the Redeemer's 
steps, where he has trodden before us. 

Second only to this sorrow, is the contact and 
the weight of sin. Between Christ and his 
people there is a difference here, but there is a 
likeness also. Jesus bore the unexpiated sins 
of the whole world ; the curse yet remaining in 
them — the penalty unpaid — the guilt 'unpar- 
doned. We feel the burthen of indwelling sin, 
but without the penalty — without the curse, 
it is the weight of pardoned sin we feel. It is 
difficult to conceive what it would be to bear 
every one sin in the manner that he bore the 
whole. Yet is our likeness to him in this sor- 
row a very prominent mark of a regenerate 
character : for as sin was his greatest enemy, so 
is it ours ; the object of our dread and our ab- 
horrence ; " the remembrance of it is grievous^ 
to us — the burthen is intolerable." This is 
strong language; uttered by thousands who* 
never felt a sorrow of the kind. But it is not 
too strong to express that anguish of spirit 



IN HIS SORROWS. 171 

which has drawn bitterest tears from eyes that 
would have looked calmly on the martyr's fire. 
*' O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver 
me from the body of this death ?" It was not 
the death of approaching martyrdom at Rome? 
that drew this cry from Paul. Nor was it the 
fear of everlasting death, for Paul knew he 
had eternal life in Christ who bought him. It 
was the death of present sin — the body of cor- 
ruption that he bore about him ; that conscious, 
living death. The approved disciple of Christ 
has no fears of punishment hereafter ; he knows 
no record of his sins is kept in heaven, as cer- 
tainly as if he had seen the hand of mercy 
blot them from the book — for God has told 
him so. But still under the sense of those for- 
given sins, he can feel a sorrow more intense 
than anything in this world can inflict. Many 
a living saint, as well as many a departed 
martyr, in whose cross every kind of infliction 
has been mingled, can testify that this was the 
bitterest draught of all. " Mine iniquities have 
taken such hold upon me, I am not able to look 
up; they are more in number than the hairs 
of my head ; therefore my heart faileth me.'^ 
^'My life is spent with grief, and my years 



172 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

with sighing; my strength faileth because of 
mine iniquities." " Mine iniquities are gone 
over my head : as a heavy burthen they are too 
heavy for me." This is not exaggeration; 
language is incompetent to exaggerate what it 
is insufficient to express. It is not the pre- 
scribed ceremony of pubUc confession ; it is 
the converse of the secret chamber : the cry of 
the soul at midnight : " All the night long 
wash I my couch with my tears." I suppose 
I need say nothing to convince an ungodly 
world that they have never felt such sorrow. 
Something painful they may now and then feel 
with reference to the future, when it passes 
like a spectre before their eyes, pointing to 
the record of the past : but it is dread of the 
punishment, not of the sin: let that be stifled 
and all is well again. Fear is not sorrow. The 
cry of almost frantic agony that has been, in 
some extreme cases, heard from the death-bed 
of the profligate, when conviction has seized 
upon him too late to repent, but too soon to 
die in peace, is indeed the cry — the foreboding 
cry — of that eternal sorrow of which remorse 
will be the severest torture. It is the concen- 
trated terror of the unrepealed curse, wilfully 



IN HIS SORROWS. 173 

f 

accumulated in despite of mercy. But gene- 
rally where the life has not been vicious, the 
natural man has no foretasting of eternal sor- 
row : the stirrings of occasional fear upon the 
conscience bring no repentance and leave no 
remorse : the joys and sorrows of this life 
engross the entire feelings ; and men die for 
the most part as they live, without shedding a 
single tear at thought of the sins they have com- 
mitted. Are such disposed to think the strong 
language of the psalmist, and other penitents, 
belongs only to the lips of the gross trans- 
gressor, who has stained his conscience with 
peculiar vices, and is really v^hat he calls 
himself, the chief of sinners ? If this, in some 
cases, should be so, his sorrow is more like his 
Saviour's sorrow still than theirs is : he is only 
in the case of him who " went down justified 
rather than the other." But more frequently 
it is otherwise. The expression, as well as the 
consciousness of sin, is generally strongest in 
the holiest bosom. It becomes more vivid as 
our state improves. Every fresh beam of light 
and truth that shines into the believer's soul, 
shows him to himself in darker colours: sin 
grows more hateful as he grows more holy: 
15* 



174 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

and the sense of it more painful as Christ 
becomes more dear. Sorrow for sin and love for 
Christ must live and grow in equal measure: a 
cold repentance will beget but feeble love ; and 
a faint love will beget but little grief for that 
which afflicted him and grieves his Holy Spirit. 
It might well be asked, " Which thinkest thou 
will love him most?'' Nature could answer 
that. And experience answers it every day 
before our eyes. T^o them who have no deep 
and abiding sense of sin, who think little of it 
and care little about it ; treat it rather as a mis- 
fortune than a fault; an hereditary disease 
entailed upon them by their father's fall, an evil 
that necessity excuses, and God forgives, and 
death will remedy. Is Christ really precious to 
them ] Do they love the mention of his name ? 
Do they make it very prominent in their devo- 
tions ; and like to have it made very prominent 
in every question or discourse about religion ? 
I believe not. What indeed is that line of 
demarcation called by so many names, defined 
so many ways, that separates in profession the 
evangelical members of the church from the 
church at large? They may differ more or 
less in other doctrines from each other and 



IN HIS SORROWS. 175 

among themselves, but in this they are uni- 
versally and irreconcileably separate. The 
thoughtless of the larger class do not consider, 
and the more considerate do not believe, that 
nature is so entirely corrupt, and sin so deadly 
an enemy. They admit its existence in a 
meliorated state, modified by the washing of 
baptism, and the diffusion of universal grace. 
They neither feel practically, nor know theoret- 
ically, the depth of their iniquities, or what the 
Scriptures call, the exceeding sinfulness of 
sin." By a deficient perception in this, their 
whole system of religion is affected. They 
think of Christ as the originating cause of this 
melioration, and so far accept and value his 
atonement : but for present help, for refuge 
from actual danger, as the Saviour of them 
that are about to perish, he is not much thought 
of by them ; they have no consciousness of 
being about to perish. Consequently there is 
no frequent mention of Christ in their dis- 
courses — no ardent desire for an interest in his 
precious blood — no intenseness of affection for 
him in their hearts. He might say to them as 
he said to one of old at whose table he sate an 
undistinguished guest, " I entered into thine 



176 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

house ; my head with oil thou didst not anoint ; 
thou gavest me no kiss." Hence, also, origi- 
nates a deficient appreciation of the Spirit's 
work. They deny, or hold for little, the con- 
version of heart, the renewal to righteousness, 
the change from a state of nature to a state of 
grace, because they do not know that they re- 
quire it. But this fundamental deficiency 
affects the conduct as it affects the principles. 
They have less susceptibility of sin in the 
commission or the contact. They can walk in 
its neighbourhood with a less timid step, and 
look upon it with a steadier eye. It is no wo 
to them to dwell in the tents of Kedar, and 
have their habitations in the dwellings of 
Mesech. Their ignorance of the real nature 
of sin, renders their perception of it so obtuse, 
they cannot detect it in its more specious forms ; 
and expose themselves with most unholy cou- 
rage to its influence. They play with it as the 
idiot with a weapon of which he never felt the 
edge. The believer does not so. He fears sin 
as he fears not anything beside : because the 
sorrow it causes him is greater than any other 
sorrow. He flies from it as from a baleful pes- 
tilence. He may, in the flne sensibility experi- 



IN HIS SORROWS. 177 

ence of its bitterness has given, — he may some- 
times even fancy it where it is not. But he 
errs on the right side. Blessed are they that 
so mourn, for they shall be comforted. The 
Father loveth a broken and contrite spirit. 
The Son remembers with tenderest sympathy 
his deep participation in such sorrow, when He 
who knew no sin was made sin for us, and sank 
beneath this burthen. The Holj Spirit has 
his peculiar dwelling-place with them that are 
of a contrite heart. It is true that Satan takes 
advantage of moments of weakness in our faith, 
to mix fear with this godly sorrow ; and makes 
us mistake for a mark of reprobation this 
strongest evidence of our acceptance with God. 
If he is permitted to succeed in the delusion, 
the anguish becomes too much for human suf- 
ferance. The sense of sin without ah equal 
sense of redeeming love, has sometimes over- 
thrpwn the intellect of the sufferer : and where 
Christ is fully known, if the faith be weak, it 
sometimes produces a season of morbid despond- 
ency. But though " sorrow may endure for a 
night, joy cometh in the morning." While the 
heart thus learns to loathe itself, the Saviour 
becomes more precious ; the sorrow and the 



178 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

love grow on together : one may for a seasan 
be forgotten in the other ; but it is on the 
increase meantime, and will manifest itself pre- 
sently. Even in the darkest hours of such 
mourning, the believer may find comfort, if he 
can remember that his sorrow resembles the 
sorrow of his Lord ; it is that which the apostle 
contrasts with the death-working sorrow of the 
world : — '' which worketh repentance to salva- 
tion." 

From this improved sensibility to the nature 
and the consequences of sin, arises another fea- 
ture of the divine character, another grief that 
assimilates the believer with his Lord: — the 
pain he feels in contemplation of another's sin — 
arising from two sources, the sinner's danger, 
and God's insulted majesty. What this trial 
must have been to the pure and compassionate 
Jesus, is not for us to estimate. We know it 
becomes more painful to ourselves in proportion 
to the increase of our love to God, our delight 
in his law, desire for his glory, and belief in 
his written word. Mark the indiflerence of the 
world to sin, when it does not invade the peace 
of society. Observe the lightness with which 
things most offensive to God, and destructive of 



IN HIS SORROWS. 179 

tlie souls of men, are spoken of in society. 
Who feels any sorrow for God's dishonoured 
law, and man's eternal misery enhanced ? Not 
they who can amuse themselves in scenes of 
vice, on the cold plea that it does themselves 
no harm. Not those who can laugh at the 
ungodly jest, and enjoy the mirth of sinners, 
content with abstaining from their worst prac- 
tices. Such was not the mind of Christ. He 
complains more bitterly of the dishonour done 
to God, than of any insult offered to himself: 
and while he groaned beneath the imputed sins 
of those who, accepting his atonement, would 
be saved, He had tears too for those who, 
rejecting it, would perish. It is interesting to 
watch the growth of this feature in the character 
of God's people. How grad>ially they become 
distressed by customs and practices, in which 
they sometime saw no harm. How painful it 
becomes to thom to associate with the ungodly : 
what a jealous susceptibility grows up in them 
of any thing that seems to affect the glory of 
God and do dishonour to his namo ! Pleasure 
ceases to be pleasure if it brings them in con- 
tact with sin ; and among their severest trials 
is the difficulty of avoiding such contact in the 



180 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

necessary business of life. What natural 
benevolence feels for the sufferings of mankind, 
is surpassed by what the renewed spirit feels in 
contemplation of their vices. Like Lot, when 
he abode in Sodom, the child of God vexes his 
holy soul from day to day, with the ungodly 
deeds that are committed around him : till he is 
ready to exclaim with David, '' Rivers of 
waters run down mine eyes, because men keep 
not thy laws." And what power has language 
to describe the father's, the brother^s, the 
husband's sorrow, while watching the ungodly 
course of those they love ? — their accumulation 
of unrepented sins ; their obstinate resistance 
of God's warning; their perverse requital of 
redeeming love, and the wrath gathered up 
against the day of wrath upon a head beloved ! 
And this beheld with the eye of faith, as sure 
of the destruction of God's enemies, as of the 
salvation of his people. It was with such a 
sorrow Jesus looked upon Jerusalem, the beloved 
city. Should not his people feel it ? There is 
one difference, indeed, between our sorrow for 
our beloved, and his ; if it were not so, it would 
be more than our weakness could endure. We 
have hope and prayer, and all the encouraging 



IN HIS SORROWS, 181 

offers of the Gospel, protracted to the latest 
moment of their day of grace. Jesus knew the 
day of grace was ended, and the ruin of his 
people irretrievable. No sorrow can be like 
unto his sorrow whencesoever it arise : but many 
and bitter are the tears of the righteous from 
this cause, shed before Heaven with groanings 
that cannot be uttered. The like anguish they 
never suffered for themselves. It could not be, 
because they never saw their own corruption by 
the light of divine grace, till grace had re- 
moved the consequences ; thej never fully knew 
their danger, till they had found refuge in 
Christ. St. Paul knew the measure of this 
sorrow, when he '^ could have wished that him- 
self was accursed from Christ for his brethren, 
his kinsmen according to the flesh." Moses 
knew, when he exclaimed, " Yet now, if thou 
wilt, forgive their sin ; and if not, blot me, I 
pray thee, out of the book which thou hast 
written." Many others of God's people have 
as deeply partaken of this bitterness; none 
perhaps are entirely exempted from it. Of the 
world I need not ask if they have felt it. Jeru- 
salem wept not for herself, nor for her children. 
They stop not even to consider how much 
16 



182 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

of the sin they witness, they may have con^ 
tributed to cause — how many of their de- 
pendents they have led into transgression of 
God's laws — how many of their children they 
have led to the shrine of mammon, after de- 
voting them in baptism to the Lord. They 
ehed no tears at night for the encouragement 
each has given to the other through the day^ 
by their unhallowed levity, to keep God out of 
mind ; perhaps to defeat the workings of his 
Spirit by sneers and jestings. Are these they 
who talk of Christ's example and the morality 
of the Gospel 1 Did Jesus so ? 

" Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I 
drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that 
I am baptized with." That sorrow to the 
Christian which once proceeded in so large a 
measure from the world's hatred has very 
nearly ceased. Individuals in private life are 
still called upon to suffer many reproaches for 
the name of Christ ; and to make the sacrifice, 
if not of life and lands, of things more dear 
to natural affection. In the petty persecutions 
of domestic strife, many a gentle spirit suffers 
an obscure martyrdom. But to the church 
generally, not only have the rack and the fire 



IN HIS SORROWS. 183 

disappeared, but the tongue of the scorner has 
lost its sting. A man of God, whose conduct 
honours his profession, is held in high estima- 
tion, even by the world : or if one world casts 
him ofF, there is another as affluent, as enlight- 
ened, and as influential, ready to receive him, 
and advance his interests. But the words of 
Christ remain. And I cannot agree with those 
that say the cross has ceased to be borne, 
religion has become easy, and the way of life 
too smooth. The profession of religion has, 
but not the reality. I cannot help thinking, that 
those who find the way so broad, have mistaken 
the gate. I doubt if they who find their 
enemies so few, have been upon the field. I 
am sure the enemies that martyrs and apostles 
feared, are still in equal force upon the ground. 
Satan is there, and sin is there, and self is there, 
in undiminished strength. The waters of afflic- 
tion that once swelled to an awful size the lesser 
streams, have turned their courses to augment 
the greater. The increase of temptation, the 
seduction of prosperity, the contact and amal- 
gamation with the world, cause the Christian 
to have more trouble with himself than ever he 
iiad with the contempt and despite of mankind. 



184 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

I doubt if the cross be lightened by the change. 
It is less apparent certainly, and men cannot 
so well discern who carries it. But the Father 
knows ; and it is worthy of remark, that the 
deepest expression of our Saviour's anguish 
passed between the Father and himself If we 
do not know ourselves whether we bear the 
cross or not, as the talk of some who say there 
is none, might lead us to suppose, I should think 
that, at the best, we have travelled but a very 
little way towards our crov/n. Let us consider 
of it. No child of God beUeves his sorrows 
meritorious ; the crown of glory is the purchase 
solely of the Redeemer's cross ; ours is no more 
than the way that leads to it. But in the 
endurance of it, so different, as we have shown, 
from all that the natural heart endures, the 
believer sees, and has a right to see with comfort 
and rejoicing, a feature of conformity to the 
likeness of his Lord : which also made St. Paul 
" rejoice in tribulation." 

> I shall say little of those sorrows which the 
behever shares with all mankind, and which I 
cannot speak of as a portion of his cross. They 
are a part of the primeval curse ; but grace 
converts even those into a blessing, instrumental 



IN HIS SORROW!?. 185 

in subduing oar corruption.^!, in weaning us 
from earth, and bringing us more near to God : 
making a medicine of nature's gall, as skilful 
physicians use the poisons of the earth, them- 
selves the produce of the curse, but made its 
antidote by skilful application. In the endu- 
rance of such sorrows, poverty, sickness, se- 
parations, and whatever else, the Christian is 
distinguished from the world, and hkened to 
4iis Lord, by the spirit in which he bears 
them, and the proportion in which he feels 
them. It is a point in which we greatly 
^need to seek and pray for more conformity. 
We are deficient ail of us. How much too 
anxious, how much too full of care, how much 
too sorrowful about the things that perish ! 
What bitter complaints from us where there 
were none from him ! Jesus was too much filled 
with greater things to pay regard to these. How 
is it that we are not ? Why are our greater joys 
and greater sorrows so often overbalanced by 
the pressure of mere temporal concerns? It 
was never so with him. 

If any inexperienced child of God, reading 
this description of a Christian's sorrow, feels 
distressed by the consciousness of having nevf r 
16* 



186 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

felt it ; if he remembers not to have wept for 
sin, though he believes he is a sinner, to have 
felt real unhappiness from his Father's absence, 
though he is sure he loves him ; — if such a one 
be young in Christ, and assured of having 
rested all his hopes upon Him, I should say to 
him, '' Be not distressed, but v/ait." The 
young recruit is not sent immediately to the 
battle. God often shows us our Saviour before 
He shows us ourselves. He gives us time to 
gather strength in him before he allows our 
enemies to meet us. Conviction precedes con- 
sciousness of sin, and often exists awhile with- 
out it. Be not discouraged, but labour to know- 
more. Look much at Christ, and you will 
grow like him by looking. 

Meantime, I cannot close without a word to 
those who are not young in Christ, who are not 
weak, who are not inexperienced— if we may 
judge by the length and strength of their pro- 
fession. I have met with such, who not only 
profess to know nothing of this conflict, this 
sorrowing after a gcdly sort, but do also deny 
the fitness of it. They will have the Christian 
course to be one of perpetual ease and quiet- 
ness ; they will not allow that a pardoned sinner 



IN HIS SORROWS. 1B7 

should be disquieted by sin, neither that it is 
possible for God to withdraw his presence from 
them. 1 can only say, that such is not the lan- 
guage of the Scriptures. It is not the experience 
of David, nor the experience of St. Paul ; it is 
not the language of saints and martyrs gene- 
rally. I think it is not in the promises of God ; 
these speak of safety, security, and confidence, 
but not of unbroken quietness: they tell of 
certain victory in the end, and warfare by the 
way. A race, a storm, a battle, a pilgrimage — 
these are not images of perpetual joy, but these 
are Scripture images of a Christian's course. 
There is a holy confidence in the midst of 
trouble, an assured triumph in the severest con- 
flict, a beacon in the night of storms and dark- 
ness. The child of God should never doubt 
of safety, whatever enemies be upon his way. 
He need not, and he does not, if he is in Christ, 
walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 
I mean nothing against that full assurance of 
faith : the same in darkness as in light, in sor- 
row as in joy ; the same when all sensible 
comfort is withdrawn, as when the brightness 
of God's face is full upon the soul ; the same in 
•the apostles on the mount, in Jonah in the 



186 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

deep, in Christ in his last agony. I believe it 
to be the privilege of every regenerate heart to 
seek and to possess it in perpetuity. If our 
faith be founded on sensible enjoyments, it 
must depart with them ; if it be founded on 
our own righteousness, it must sink under 
a sense of sin ; but if founded upon Christ, 
it can abide all changes, for He is unchange- 
able. But of those who have built themselves 
a tabernacle on that mount where the first 
disciples stayed so short a time, I must still 
inquire by what road they came thither. If 
it was through hosts of vanquished enemies ; 
through the furnace of affliction seven times 
heated ; through the deep humiliation of a 
broken and a contrite heart ; then I have 
nothing to reply. The conflict may be over, 
the battle may be won. Satan, and sin, and 
self, foiled by long resistance, may have blunted 
their weapons and desisted ; and the believer, 
like a soldier at nightfal, may lie down in 
his tent in peace, waiting the morning to 
receive his laurels. Many an aged Christian, 
many a deeply tried and suffering Christian, 
has, I doubt not, attained to such repose ; a 
season of holiness, and peace>^ and joy, more 



IN HIS SORROWS. 189 

like the bliss of heaven, than the pilgrimage 
of earth. But if any have reached it by 
another road; if they have suffered no cru- 
cifixion, borne no cross, endured no spiritual 
conflict ; and, as I have sometimes heard, do 
deny the need of any such thing — I confess I 
understand nothing of their religion, I find 
nothing of it in the Bible : I think they will do 
well to prepare for a reverse* 



CHAPTER VIL 

LN HIS JOYS. 

^' These things I have spoken to you that my joy 
might remain in you^ and that your joy 
might be Jull^^ — John xv. 11. 

Had '' the Man of sorrows" any joys? The 
gospels, the proper memoirs of his life, make 
no mention of any. His tears are spoken of, 
but not his smiles. When we consider what 
He was — holy, pure, divine, eternal ; when we 
consider whence He came — from the bosom of 
the Father, from a throne in glory ; and what 
He came for — to suffer, the just, for the unjust ; 
we might conclude that in this unsatisfying, 
miserable world, the Son of God could find 
nothing to enjoy — could have no thought of 
gladness : and yet I think He had. We must 



IN HIS JO\H* 191 

look very closely indeed to find the sources of 
his joy, for they were few, and hidden. Once, 
and I think no more, it is said in the gospels, 
that Jesus rejoiced in spirit* (Luke x. 21.) The 
occasion of his rejoicing is very remarkable : — - 
*' I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and 
earth, that thou hast hid these things from the 
wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to 
babes." There could be but one cause for this 
— Jesus had no pleasure in the blindness of any 
one — no value for the soul of one above another ; 
but He beheld his Father's glory in it ; He 
knew that had the wise and prudent of this 
world been chosen to make known his gospel, 
men would have given to them the glory — per- 
haps they would have taken it to themselves* 
But God had chosen the foohsh of this world 
to confound the wise, and Jesus delighted in 
the preference, because He saw the greater 
glory that would result from it to God : proving 
that salvation is of grace, and not of merit ; 
that divine knowledge is imparted immediately 
from heaven, and not acquired by human 
understanding. I cannot help remarking 
how different- a feeling prevails amongst men. 
There is apt to be great rejoicing in the church 



192 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

when some great one, some wise one, is con- 
verted, as if it were more important that such 
a one should be saved than one who is poor and 
unknown. A great deal is said about the influ- 
ence such a conversion may have on others, 
the power of such a one for doing good, the 
conspicuousness of a light so elevated. This 
may be the result if God so pleases, but it is 
evident that Jesus made no account of all this : 
He expressly rejoiced that it was otherwise. 

I have said, there is in the gospels no other 
mention of the Redeemer's joy. It is only by 
inference we can trace them. It may be in- 
ferred justly, that He himself rejoiced in that 
which He declared to be a cause of joy in 
heaven — the bringing of a sinner to repentance. 
*' He shall see of the travail of his soul, and 
shall be satisfied ;" entirely when the purpose of 
his travails should be accomplished in the sal- 
vation of his church ; but prospectively, in the 
depths of his sufferings. As St. Paul also 
speaks, *'* Who for the joy that was set before 
him despised the shame.'' As one and another 
turned to follow him, we must suppose the 
compassionate Saviour rejoiced in the fruits of 
anticipated victory, with a joy proportioned to 



IN HIS JOVS. 193 

his love — and that was infinite. When of the 
ten who were heaJed, one only returned to 
glorify God, some pleasure in that one would 
mix itself with his sense of the ingratitude of 
the remainder. 

And when in the house of Lazarus, Jesus 
expressed so little satisfaction in the hospitable 
assiduities of Martha, needless to him, and in- 
jurious to herself, we cannot suppose otherwise 
than that he felt pleasure in the company of 
Mary, as she sat listening at his feet. And 
did He not take pleasure in the Magdalen^s 
love and the Centurion's faith? When we 
consider how dear to him were the souls He 
came from heaven to save, and how dear the 
glory of the Father which He came to vindi- 
cate, it cannot be doubted that Jesus felt a. 
joy exalted as his own nature, whenever a 
sinner gave token of repentance, and God was 
glorified in his works. And if goodness takes 
pleasure in the exercise of itself, Jesus must 
have been pleased whenever He exerted his 
deity for the relief of human suffering. If we 
would know more, we must have recourse to 
the Psalais, those sacred soliloquies of Christ's 
humanity. I pass over the expressions of 
17 



194 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

triumph in the salvation of his people, so 
frequent in Isaiah and elsewhere : they seem to 
be the language of the glorified rather than the 
suffering Messiah ; our inquiry is confined to 
the period of his humiliation. In referring to 
the Psalms, I can cite those only of which the 
application is unquestionable, because apphed 
to Christ in the New Testament. Let them 
testify as to the character of the Redeemer's 
joy. A single quotation will unfold it all. 
*' Then said I, Lo I come : in the volume of 
the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy 
will, O my God." " The Lord is the portion 
of mine inheritance and my cup : thou main- 
tainest my lot. The lines are fallen to me in 
pleasant places ; yea, I have a goodly heritage. 
I will bless the Lord who hath given me coun- 
sel : my reins also instruct me in the night 
seasons. I have set the Lord always before me : 
because He is at my right hand, I shall not be 
moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my 
glory rejoice th ; my flesh also shall rest in 
hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell ; 
neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see 
corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of 



IN HIS JOYS. 195 

life : in thy presence is fulness of joy ; at thy 
right hand are pleasures for evermore."* 

Were we to multiply quotations, as we 
might, the result would be only this — Jesus 
mentions, the prophetic Spirit mentions for him, 
only two sources of delight : God, in his law, 
his glory, and his presence, and the salvation 
of mankind. If He had any ether pleasm'es — if 
the senses and affections of his humanity could 
delight in what gratifies ours — if He could 
enjoy those external blessings so abundantly 
bestowed upon us, nothing is said of it — He 
does not tell us so. We know by experience, 
under the pressure of some great and abiding 
sorrow, how insensible we become to all that 
would otherwise delight us : how the beauties 
of nature, the gifts of Providence, the charms 
of social intercourse, cease to have any sensible 
existence in a season, of deep calamity. Jesus 
came on earth in search of pain and sorrow : 
probably He found no joys but those He brought 
with him from heaven.; certain it is He does not 
speak of any other. 

If this was so, we cannot but perceive in 
how different a position the servant stands with 

* Psalm XV i. 



196 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

respect to the enjoyments of this life, to that 
in which his Lord was placed. ''The foxes 
have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, 
but the Son of man hath not where to lay his 
head." The meanest of God's people, the 
most ungrateful of his enemies, have more 
sources of temporal enjoyment than were 
granted to the humanity of his only begotten 
Son. The common gifts of Providence, those 
rains that descend alike on the just and the 
unjust, how abundant they are, how meet to 
gratify our senses and feelings, while waiting 
the more sufficient gratification of the immortal 
spirit. We are not justified in undervaluing 
them, and we are not forbidden by our Saviour's 
example to enjoy them. If He did not, it was 
because He had a baptism to be baptized with, 
that admitted of no interval of ease : He had a 
debt of suflfering to pay which admitted of no 
temporal joy, and an aim too high, too holy, 
too much engrossed with the ^^py that was 
set before him," to leave him any taste for 
earthly pleasure. Our case is very different; 
not only has our debt of misery been paid, but 
a large purchase of happiness has been made 
for us ; comprisinir n^l good things by the way, 



IN HIS JOYS. 197 

as well as eternal felicity in the end. Every 
temporal good is the purchase, or rather the 
re-purchase, from the forfeiture of the fall, of 
the Redeemer's blood, given to us richly to en- 
joy, by him who refuses them for himself 

No enjoyment, therefore, if lawfully attained, 
and sinlessly pursued, is forbidden to the fol- 
lowers of Christ ; and I cannot think that those 
who are in possession of much of this world's 
good, provided it has come to them in the order 
of Providence, without too much seeking of 
their own, and is devoted to his service, have 
any reason to be uneasy, because of this want 
of conformity to their Lord ; neither to reproach 
themselves that they cull so many flowers where 
He gathered only thorns. He made himself 
poor in joy, parting from that eternal weight 
of it He had with the Father before the worlds 
began, that we might be made rich in it : what 
wonder if He gives us more on earth than He 
enjoyed himself? Let us understand whence 
we derive it, and take it, and be grateful. 

Admitting, in this one respect, a merciful 
unlikeness, there is not the less a required con- 
formity between the enjoyments of Christ and 
the enjoyments of his people. We must not 
17* 



198 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

forget there is a joy spoken of in Scripture that 
is none of his giving, and none of his sanction- 
ing : it is cursed with a curse, a hundred times 
repeated. Let the eager contenders after this 
world's deHghts stay their hand a moment, and 
listen to what is said of it ; " Wo unto you that 
are full, for ye shall hunger. Wo unto you 
that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep.'* 
" The ease of the simple shall slay them, and 
the prosperity of fools shall destroy them." 
"And the harp and the viol, the tabret and 
the pipe, and wine are in their feasts ; but they 
regard not the work of the Lord, neither con- 
sider the operation of his hands." " Therefore 
hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her 
mouth without measure ; and their glory, and 
their multitudes, and their pomp, and he that 
rejoiceth, shall descend into it." ^'Even in 
laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of 
that mirth is heaviness." " The world shall 
rejoice, but their joy shall be turned into 
mourning." *' Now ye rejoice in your boast- 
ing, but all such rejoicing is evil." " Behold, 
all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourself 
about with sparks : walk in the light of your 
fire, and in tlie sparks that ye have kindled. 



IN HIS JOYS. 199 

This shall ye have at my hand : ye shall lie 
down in sorrow." 

There are earthly pleasures, then, and earthly 
joys, in which there is not only no conformity 
to the Divine v^ill and character, but of which 
the enjoyment is sin and the end is death. 
There is the joy of Haman, when he " went 
forth that day, joyful and with a glad heart."* 
There is the joy of the Philistines, when they 
gathered themselves together to rejoice.f There 
is the joy of them that are " lovers of pleasure 
more than lovers of God," of them that are 
^' choked with the pleasures of this life," of them 
that "believed not, but had pleasure in unrighte- 
ousness :" of them that not only do such things 
as are contrary to the judgment of God, but 
" have pleasure in them that do them." It would 
be vain to seek among these for the renewed 
.image of our Lord. There was in him not only 
no experience, but no capability of such enjoy- 
ment. The pleasures of sin, or lawful pleasures 
sinfully pursued, were equally impossible to 
him; and we cannot hesitate to class with these, 
all pleasures that are enjoyed in unthankfulness 

* Esther v. 8. t Judges xvi. 23. 



^00 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

or forge tfulness of God. And if Jesus had, 
as we have shown, no pleasure but in his 
Father's glory, love, and presence, and the sal- 
vation of his people, it is unnecessary to show 
how little likeness to him there is in those, 
whose enjoyments are chilled and interrupted 
whenever such themes are forced upon them. 

The pleasures that remain when the above 
■are excluded — objects of sinless desire to the 
believer, which he may seek with moderation, 
ask with submission, and receive with grati- 
tude, great and many as they are, are little in 
comparison with those which he shares with 
Christ, and derives entirely from some degree 
of conformity to the mind that was in him. 
If we found it difficult to set forth the secret 
sorrows of the believer, how much more so to 
give the measure of his joys. Had we the 
language of heaven to express them in, we 
should fail to convey a just impression to the 
mind of the ungodly. We find ourselves in 
a maze when we would set about it, and know 
not where to begin, and are ready to give up the 
attempt. I must recall the Saviour's words, for 
I perceive that joy is joy, only in proportion as it 
resembles his. 



IN HIS JOYS. 201 

" How I delight to do thy will !" or as 
David, " Lord, how I love thy law !" and St. 
Paul, " For I delight in the law of God after 
the inward man." This the natural heart does 
not, and cannot. The unconverted man may 
sometimes do the will of God ; he may wish, 
with a view to the eternal consequences, that he 
could do it more ; he may by his natural judg- 
ment perceive that God's laws are good, and 
without entering into their spiritual meaning, 
make an attempt to observe them in the letter. 
Those who do not so themselves, often bear 
testimony to their excellence, by admiring those 
that do. But to love them, to delight in them 
— this no man ever did, but he who has learned 
it of his Saviour. Consider what this delight 
implies. It is in all his will — in all his laws ; 
this law, this will, may require of us the 
sacrifice of every thing — the sacrifice of our- 
selves, and our sins, it must require. It 
can never require of us what it required of 
our Lord when He delighted in it ; but it may 
comprise much that is painful to our human 
nature to suffer, and to do — as the law of God 
requires the correction of every sinful habit, 
the renunciation of every proud desire, the 



202 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

subjection of every ungodly passion, and absti- 
nence from many things very inviting to us in 
the world. The will of God oUen imposes 
severe and bitter trials, much passive endu- 
rance, as well as active self-sacrifice : a pharisaic 
effort to do the one, and a calm submission to 
endure the other, have been often manifested 
by the children of this world. It is reserved 
to the children of God to find joy in them. 
St; Paul rejoiced in his infirmities when it was 
the will of God they should not be removed ; 
he speaks of them that glory in tribulation. 
St. James bids the rich rejoice when they are 
made low. Our Saviour bids us rejoice, and 
be exceeding glad, under falsehood, insult, 
and oppression. These are not nature's joys ; 
no natural man can say he ever felt them — 
the believer can. He may feel glad, not only 
in spite of these things, but because of them ; 
and this he does for the same reason that 
Jesus did ; not because they are less trying 
to him than to others, but because he so 
delights in the will of God that it is good to 
him in any way : and because he so delights 
in the law of God, he is glad of any thing that 
may subdue hi^ ?m^j and bring him into more 



IN HIS JOYS. 203 

full subjection to it. There is another sense in 
which a Christian rejoices in the law of God, 
as the world cannot. One who thinks to be 
saved by his own righteousness, or does not 
wish to part from his sins, is not glad that the 
law of God is what it is ; he would rather its 
requirements were less, and is always trying 
to reduce the standard, and to excuse his devi- 
ations. Not so the behever. Being freed by 
grace from the terrors of the law, the price of 
his salvation paid, it is gladness to him that 
God requires holiness — that he is determiiied 
to root out every sin, however hard and painful 
the excision. It would be small joy to know 
that he is justified, if he were not sure he 
should be also sanctified ; conformity, exact 
conformity, is what he longs for ; not for worlds 
would he be excused, and suffered to continue 
in his sins. On this point, I believe, those that 
know not Christ will be obliged to convict 
themselves, and acknowledge that, apart from 
the consequences, they have more pleasure in 
sin than in holiness: if God would dispense 
with obedience, they could enjoy themselves 
better than they do. Should there be any, as 
I fear there may, who profess to be followers 



204 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

of Christ, and love his gospel, but who do not 
love his law — who enjoy verj much the doc- 
trines of free salvation, and justification by 
faith, but disrelish those of sanctification by the 
Holy Spirit, the growth of grace, and the re- 
newal of the divine image in the soul — to such 
I must remark, that this was not the mind of 
Christ; He delighted in the law of God, as 
much as ever He delighted in his mercy or hi& 
grace. The unregenerate cannot, because the 
law is against them, but if we, as Christians, 
do not, there is something very defective, to say 
the least, in our religion. 

The believer further manifests his delight in 
the law of God, by the joy he feels in seeing 
others do it. As he can never behold sin with- 
out feeling pain, so does he never see holiness 
without delighting in it. What exquisite joy, 
in the darkness of this evil world, to look upon 
the lights that grace has lighted — to hear, to see 
the works of them that walk according to his 
law ; to find, it may be in some public walk, 
it may be in some abode of poverty, one who 
seems living only to fulfil his will : this is a 
pleasure worthy of Christ to have enjoyed — and 
doubtless He did enjoy it, when He beheld 



IN HIS JOYS, 205 

Mary at his feet, forgetting every thing in her 
desire to learn of him. 

If I speak less of joy in doing the will of 
God, than in having it done in us, and seeing 
it done by others, it is not because I do not 
know it to be the greatest. But we so seldom 
attain to it — it is so seldom we are satisfied 
with any thing we do — we perceive so much 
more of defect than of conformity in our best 
performances, that though I know it may be 
felt, and be more grateful to us than any other 
joy, and though I know we may so desire it as 
to say with our Lord, " My meat and drink is 
to do the will of God," yet the sense of having 
done it satisfactorily is so rare, I can say but 
little about it ; it may at least be judged of by 
the pain of having failed in it. 

" The Lord is the portion of mine inherit- 
ance and my cup." " The lines are fallen to 
me in pleasant places ; yea, I have a goodly 
heritage." This is the gladness of him, w^ho 
having found a treasure hidden in a field, for 
joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, 
and buyeth that field. Perhaps it would 
be too much to say the believer is the only 
contented one on earth. I have seen the 
18 



206 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

children of this world so well pleased with Its 
perishable possessions, as long as they can keep 
them, I must suppose they too believe they 
have a goodly heritage, as he did, who said to 
his soul, " Soul, take thine ease," &c. But 
when these words applied to Christ, He had 
no such possessions — He had not where to lay 
his head ; He had stripped himself of infinite 
wealth, and retained no portion to rejoice in but 
his God. I shall not err, then, if I say that 
they who resemble Christ are the only people 
that rejoice in their portion, and think their 
heritage good, be their earthly condition what 
it may. This enjoyment of God, as a present 
portion, is very difficult to describe, but every 
experienced Christian knows what it is; it is 
something quite distinct from the expectation of 
future blessedness ; it is what St. Paul calls 
" being filled with the fulness of God ;" of 
which David says, " Happy people that have 
the Lord for their God." And again, " Thy 
loving kindness is better than life." And in 
Rev. ii. " I know thy works, and tribula- 
tion, and poverty ; but thou art rich towards 
God." This is spoken of present good. It is 
difficult sometimes to separate present enjoy- 



IN HIS JOYS. 207 

ment from eternal hope ; but the believer 
knows that he has both. He as much seeks 
happiness in God now as he expects to do in 
heaven, and finds it in him when he has none 
elsewhere. The moments of greatest delight in 
God are usually those of greatest destitution: 
when we look for some to take pity, but there 
is none ; and for comforters, but there is no 
man. Ask the tried saint which have been the 
happiest moments of his life, and he will tell 
you of those in which every earthly good had 
departed from him — in some deep affliction, some 
extreme suffering, some pressing danger, when 
man either could not or would not give him 
any help. These have been his happiest hours ; 
for then, emptied of every thing else, he was 
fullest of God ; and had such sensible enjoyment 
of him, as earthly language is not suited to 
express, nor earth-devoted spirits able to under- 
stand. It is then that, having nothing, we are 
possessed of all things. 

I proceed with the Redeemer's words. " I 
have set the Lord always before me : because 
He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. 
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory 
rejoiceth." The Lord is to his people an abid- 



208 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

ing portion. He does not, like some friend of 
earth, come in at distant periods, give us a fond 
embrace and go away. He makes his abode 
with us. He sits down, as it were, at our right 
hand, to be ready for our need of him. The 
seasons of peculiar joy we have just spoken of, 
more akin to heaven than earth, are but for 
an occasion, and generally pass with it : leaving 
behind them a distincter notion of what our 
future blessedness will be, a firmer evidence 
of what God will do, by what he has done in 
our time of need. Were this elevation to con- 
tinue always, wc should not only have no cross 
to bear, but should be unfit to do our work on 
earth. The disciples, together with their Mas- 
ter, descended from the mount of transfigura- 
tion, to try in very difl!erent scenes the love and 
faithfulness of God. So must our seasons of 
spiritual enjoyment pass : leaving their remem- 
brance like a beacon light to cheer the believer 
through his hours of darkness. But it is not 
in times of exaltation only the child of God is 
conscious of his Father's presence. Joyful above 
measure as these moments are, they are not those 
visits that He values most. It is the abiding — 
the sitting down — the perpetual consciousness of 



IN HIS JOYS. 209 

God's presence, he values above those evanescent 
joys. " He is about my bed, and about my path." 
" He knoweth my downsitting and mine up- 
rising." " When thou goest through the waters, 
I will be with thee." " I laid down and slept, 
and rose up again, for the Lord sustained me." 

To an ungodly man the sense of God's 
presence is no joy. Some restraint it may be 
upon his actions : and those to whose happier 
hours the thought of God's presence does not 
recur, and would not be welcome if it did, will 
often, in a time of trial, or under a sense of 
injury, appeal to the omniscience of the Deity 
for justice and protection ; not being themselves 
the aggressors, they are glad that God is 
present to behold what is done amiss ; and to 
defend their cause as they believe He will: 
though as soon as the necessity is passed, they 
can very well dispense with his observance, 
and find it convenient to forget it. This is 
natural. Nothing can be less agreeable than 
to live in the presence of one of whom we are 
not certain whether he be for us or against 
us : who is taking account of every word and 
action to reproduce it at some future time. 
To make the consciousness of God's pres- 
18* 



210 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

ence, in the sense in which he is present to 
all men, a source of confidence and joy, we 
must be certain that God loves us ; that he 
sees no iniquity in us ; otherwise than as a 
father the faults of a cherished child ; which 
having corrected in love, he will no more 
remember. To acquire this certainty, we must 
be assured of our reconciliation with God by 
the blood of Christ, in the renewing of the 
Holy Spirit : whence it is demonstrable that 
none but a real Christian can have delight in 
knowing that God is ever present w^ith him. 
But the Christian does more than know it ; in 
its common sense he perceives it, he feels it : 
perhaps he has more sensible enjoyment of it 
than ever they had, who in the person of the 
Son, sat with Him and walked with Him in 
the streets of Jerusalem. How familial' is the 
import of our Saviour's words, " We will come 
in to him, and sup with him." And how well 
do they depict the believer's joy. He may eat 
the bread of affliction, and have tears for his 
drink ; but the consciousness that God is with 
him sweetens every thing. " Because he is at 
my right hand, I shall not be moved." By 
reason of some indulged sin, or some infirmity 



IN HIS JOYS. 211 

obscuring the spiritual sense, the consciousness 
of this especial presence may be lost to us for a 
season, as it was to the Son of God in the hour 
of his humiliating trial: which will plunge us, 
as it did him, in deeper sorrow than any earthly 
loss can bring us to. Then, and then only, 
is the Christian quite destitute of enjoyment. 
When affliction sits alone with her cares, when 
penitence has no company but her sins ; it is as 
if one sat beside her to whom she may tell 
them all, certain of sympathy — certain of 
relief. The world conceives nothing of all 
this : it is that manifestation of himself which 
God promised not to the world, but to them 
whom he had chosen out of the world. Men 
might understand something of it by what they 
know of the sweetness of human sympathy. 
We know what it is, when the heart is bursting 
with imprisoned feeling, to find some one to 
whom we can outpour it all ; who can under- 
stand our emotions, and take interest in our 
disclosures. I suppose there is no earthly 
solace like to this. Cannot those who have 
experienced it, and still oftener felt the want of 
it, believe what it must be to have such a friend 
at all times near, at all times ready ; from 



212 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

whom we have no apprehensions, no reserves : 
willing to listen, and certain to reply, by the 
responses of his Holy Spirit, speaking courage 
and comfort to the soul 1 Yes, they might 
understand — their very want of it would teach 
them — but they will not believe. They see the 
servant, as others saw the Master, with nothing 
in him that they should desire. While he goes 
in and out amongst them, the one poor, perhaps, 
among many rich — the one unfortunate among 
many prosperous — the one sick among many 
well — they do not perceive that he carries in his 
bosom a spring of joy, ebbing and flowing 
indeed, but never dry ; more pleasant at its 
lowest than all their pleasant things : they do 
not know he is the happy — the essentially 
happy one amongst them : satisfied with his 
heritage, and exulting in his portion, even in 
the Lord his God: that only portion, beside 
his sorrows, that Jesus had on earth. 

" Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory 
rejoiceth ; my flesh also shall rest in hope : for 
thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt 
thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." 
Jesus, from the depth of suffering, looked for- 
ward to joy. About to lay down his life, as 



IN HIS JOYS. 213 

he had already laid aside his glory, he knew 
that his sinless body could not see corruption ; 
hell and the grave could not retain the Lord 
of life and glory. In his lowest humiliation he 
was able to rejoice that the power of Satan 
would be short, and that his enemies should 
not ultimately triumph over him. How much 
does the situation of the believer resemble, in 
this respect, the situation of his Lord, and his 
rejoicing agree with his ! Whatever the present 
burthen of his sins, the temptations of Satan, 
and the trials and seductions of the world, he 
knows he shall not perish in them. He may 
suffer, he may sin, he must die — his body must 
pass through corruption : but he knows it will 
not remain for ever in the grave, neither his 
soul in hell. " For if we have been planted 
together in the likeness oi his death, we shall 
be also in the likeness of his resurrection."* 
What joy — what gladness in this assurance, 
in the certainty of resurrection to eternal life ! 
Let us consider of what this joy is compounded, 
and who enjoys it : for I believe it is not so 
universal as we might suppose it would be, 
where the doctrine of a resurrection is believed, 
* Rom. vi. 5o 



214 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

It is said that all beings ai'e averse to the 
thought of annihilation : all that has hfe de- 
sires to continue it. This may be so naturally. 
But fallen man is so peculiarly placed, that if 
he be not pardoned, and the curse upon him 
removed, it would be better for him had he 
never been born, or that he could cease to be. 
If he does not think so, it is because he does 
not believe his own condition, and the con- 
demnation that awaits him. To an uprepent- 
ing sinner, knowing himself to be such, the 
thought of resurrection would be one of un- 
mixed dread : to be even at peace, he must dis- 
believe the fall, or disbeheve the circumstances, 
as revealed in Scripture. Of course he can be 
no partaker in this joy. But with the mass of 
those who think that they beheve in the resur- 
rection, how is it ? Thoughtlessness, forget- 
fulness, and indifference, are not joy. To 
rejoice and be glad that our soul will not be 
left in hell, we must know that it has been in 
danger of being so, and deserves to be so. A 
man does not rejoice in escape from shipwreck 
who has never been upon the waters, or seen a 
storm : and were he even there, asleep in his 



IN HIS JOYS. 216 

hammock, dreaming of summer seas and peace- 
ful havens, though insensible to danger, it 
could not well be said that he rejoiced in the 
hope of safety. It is further necessary we 
should be assured of that which is the subject of 
rejoicing. Apart from those who do not care, 
there are a great many people who do not 
know whether their souls will be left in eternal 
misery or not. From those whose vague and 
empty hopes that they may be happy when 
they die, have no foundation but their own 
ignorance and disbelief of God's ^revealed word, 
to the fearful and timid saint, who from obscure 
views or physical infirmity, cannot perceive his 
own security w^hen really fixed upon the Rock 
of ages, there are many degrees and distinc- 
tions of uncertainty, that can by no means be 
classed together : some being as little entitled 
to their hopes, as others to their fears. I think 
the former are not likely to feel joy in the 
thought of eternity, though they be unwarrant- 
ably free from fear. The latter may have a 
hope strong enough, and a faith firm enough, 
at times, to rejoice in the promises of God, and 
the expectation of pardon, founded upon them. 
I have seen people more happy than I should 



216 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

have expected, while professing to feel no 
certainty of resurrection to hfe, because not 
assured of being the children of God. But I 
should think when this hope does really amount 
to anything of any abiding joy, they must be 
more certain of the forgiveness of their sins 
than they like to say they are ; and have more 
assurance than they know how to define. I 
shall not discuss the doctrine of assurance ; but 
perhaps those pious persons, who speak with 
less confidence than they feel, or ought to feel, 
of their eternal state, do not sufficiently consider 
the encouragement they give to the doubtful on 
the other hand, who take occasion from the 
uncertainty thus thrown about the path of life, 
to believe the path of destruction equally un- 
certain. Doubt, uncertainty, desire, are not 
mgredients of joy. A man cannot rejoice in 
that which he does not know. As the Scrip- 
ture admits degrees of faith, we may equally 
admit degrees of pleasure proportioned to it, 
short of the enjoyment of actual knowledge. 
But if the believer would rejoice after the man- 
ner of his Lord, he must know that his soul 
will not be left in hell, nor his body in the 
grave. In the midst of sin, and under the 



IN HIS JOYS. 217 

deepest sense of guilt, he must know that he is 
pardoned — in the midst of danger he must be 
assured of safety — in the hottest of the battle 
he must be secure of victory. And wherefore 
not ? There is a great deal more doubt on all 
sides than the Scripture warrants. Men are 
living without God in the world, walking after 
the course of this world, in the vanity of their 
minds ; and they persist in doubting, and 
others with mistaken charity doubt for them, 
whether they are going in the w^ay of de- 
struction : in the very front of God's revealed 
word — of his attested oath — that they who do 
so shall perish : in defiance of such examples 
of his faithfulness in threatening as might well 
extinguish every doubt. " For if Grod spared 
not the angels that sinned, but cast them down 
to hell," and spared not the old world,"" 
" bringing in the flood upon the world of the 
ungodly," ^' and turning the cities of Sodom 
and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with 
an overthrow, making them an example unto 
those that after should live ungodly," what 
pretence can there be for doubting if they who 
so live shall perish? Yet no one seems sure 
of this. On the other hand, God has declared 
19 



218 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

that there is no condemnation to them that are 
in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, 
but after the Spirit. He has describedj in 
every manner human language will admit of, 
what is the meaning of being in Christ, and 
what it is to walk after the Spirit ; and without 
a condition more, has said, " Verily, verily, he 
that beUeveth on me hath everlasting hfe." 

Yet how few seem sure of this ! The two 
characters — the regenerate and the unregene- 
rate — the man of the world and the man of 
God — the dead in Adam and the living in 
Christ Jesus — are placed in juxtaposition 
throughout the Bible. They are described, 
contrasted, measured one against the other, 
with most minute exactness ; they are exhibited 
in opposition under every imaginable circum- 
stance. And men say they are indistinguish- 
able — so indistinguishable, we cannot know to 
which party we belong. This w^ould be very 
strange, if it were true. But it is not true ! 
If it be too much to say, that all might know 
whether they are Christ's or not, which I do not 
think it is, I can certainly say that thousands 
might know who do not. — Some are endeavour- 
ing to deserve eternal life, and doubt if they shall 



iN HIS JOYS. 219 

succeed. These might easily he made sm'e : 
for by the deeds of the law shall no man living 
be justified. Others, in accepting through 
Christ the remission of sins, think there is yet 
some measure of service to be filled up to 
entitle them to a participation in the benefits of 
his death, and they doubt if their imperfect 
services will reach the required amount. They 
need not, for certain is it, that when they have 
done all, they will be found unprofitable ser- 
vants. Of those who have received the gospel, 
and know the way of salvation by Christ alone, 
some are agitated by fears lest they should lose 
this pearl of price, and depart from the path of 
life on which they beheve that they have 
entered. This is indeed an agitating doubt, 
and can only be relieved by Scriptures such as 
these : — " My Father, which gave them me, is 
greater than all, and no man is able to pluck 
them out of my Father's hand," " Having 
loved his own which are in the world, He 
loved them to the end." " Being confident of 
this very thing, that he which hath begun a 
good work in you, will perform it unto the end.' 
^* Who shall also confirm you, to the end that 
6 may be blameless in the day of our Lord 



220 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

Jesus Christ." For such, by the hght of Scrip- 
ture, I see nothing" but certainty. If we stand 
by any strength, by any perseverance of our 
own we shall fall certainly : if by the unchange- 
ableness of God's love and purpose, we as cer- 
tainly shall stand fast. There are others, and 
too many, who are not certain of their safety, 
because they are not certain of their choice : 
they know where the treasure is hidden, and 
have agreed for the purchase of the field, but 
when they should be taking possession, they 
are haggling for the price. They love Christ 
with such a divided heart, they are never sure 
whether they love him sufficiently — whether 
they do not love something else better. They 
walk so near to the line of demarcation by 
which the children of God are separated from 
the children of this world, that though they 
mean to keep on the right side, they cannot 
always discover where they are. Far be it 
from me to say that they ought to feel secure. 
But " how long halt ye between two opinions ?" 
Why not decide ? Put away the gods many 
and the lords many that so divide your heart : 
walk farther from the line of separation you see 
so indistinctly ; make your calling and election 



IN HIS JOYS, 221 

sure ; choose you this day whom you will serve. 
There is a certainty even in your condition ; 
for as certainly as the word of God is true, 
you cannot do both ; you cannot serve God 
and mammon. " If any man love the world, 
the love of God is not in him." " The friend- 
ship of the world is enmity against God.^' 

Thus much is plain. Whatever be the causes 
of uncertainty respecting the state of our souls, 
and whatever the means by which assurance 
is to be obtained, it is evident from Scripture 
that such an assurance is to be enjoyed. As 
St. John speaks : " Hereby we know that He 
abideth in us, by the Spirit that he has given 
us." Again : " We know that we are born of 
God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness." 
*" And we know that the Son of God is come, 
•and hath given us an understanding, that we 
may know Him that is true ; and we are in 
Him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. 
This is the true God and eternal life."* And 
St. Paul : " The Spirit itself beareth witness 
with our spirit, that we are the children of 
God."| And David, " Thou hast redeemed 
me, O Lord God of truth." Until such an 
* 1 John V. 19, 20. t Rom. viii. 16. 

19* 



222 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

assurance of salvation be obtained, the Christian 
cannot enter into this portion of the Saviour's 
joy. It is only when he knows his sins are 
pardoned, that his heart will be glad, and his 
glory rejoice, and his flesh rest in hope. As 
David speaks : " My lips shall greatly rejoice 
when I sing unto thee, and my soul which thou 
hast redeemed." And St. Peter ; " Who are 
kept by the power of God through faith unto 
salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, 
wherein we greatly rejoice." And our Lord: 
" Rather rejoice that your names are written in 
heaven." Indispensable to such joy is a sense of 
sin and sin's desert, with a knowledge of Christ 
and of his work ; of God's justice to condemn, 
and his mercy to save. As our sense of these 
increases, our joy increases. And then what 
delight it is ! At times so overwhelming, the 
soul seems incapable of more. Have the chil- 
dren of this world ever tasted it? Has the 
cold moralist tasted it ? Let them be honest to 
themselves ; — they know they never have. 

Add to this the future ; " In thy presence is 
fulness of joy ; at thy right hand are pleasures 
for evermore." What will not the ambitious of 
this world sacrifice for the future — the vague, 



IN HIS JOYS. 223 

uncertain, perishable future ? With an object 
of sufficient interest in view, and the prospect 
of obtaining it, men pass contentedly through 
days of toil and nights of unrest — no suffering 
too much, no sacrifice too great ; set but a 
scheme of future bliss before them, the present 
is absorbed, annihilated. Without it, without 
a prospect or an object, ease itself becomes 
insupportable, possession satiates, the soul sick- 
ens and loathes its plenitude. There is not 
on earth a more miserable being, than he to 
whom the world has given all, but has no more 
to promise. A French writer has said, if she 
might ask one boon of Heaven for herself^ 
before all things she should choose to be 
secured for ever from ennui, that torment of 
disoccupied powers and undefined desires. She 
did not know how only that boon could be 
bestowed. A future, near, sufficient, certain; 
in greatness above the sublimest flight of 
intellect — in bliss beyond imagination's stretch. 
" It hath not entered into the heart of man 
to conceive, what God has prepared for them 
that love him." But it is there ; a vision ever 
bright in the believer's eyes, neither idly to 
be waited for, nor doubtfully expected. With 



224 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

all the animation of the spirit-stirring race, with 
all the energising vigour of the battle-field ; 
there is his goal, his crown, his eternal great 
reward. Children of pleasure, falsely called 
so, what would you give, in your diseased 
satiety, for a prospect such as this ? To win 
a name that they may never hear, to earn 
laurels that will have no living brow to bind, 
the great ones of this world forego all present 
indulgence, and no man wonders at their 
choice. Man knows not why, because he will 
not inquire of his Maker ; but he does know 
himself to be so constituted that he cannot do 
without an object, and cannot be happy without 
the stimulus of expectation. To regard only 
the present hour, and take no aim at any thing 
beyond, is considered a mark of an ignoble 
spirit, of brutish insensibility. To look for- 
ward, to reach after, is that which peculiarly 
distinguishes the intellectual from the animal 
creation. But how short a way forward — how 
narrow a reach, compared with the believer's 
immortality ! Or let it be otherwise — let man 
have and be satisfied, enjoy and desire no more ; 
what is his position still ? In spite of himself, 
he too has a future. He may neither fear it, 



IN HIS JOYS. 225 

nor love it, but he is making towards it every 
moment. He counts his age unwillingly ; he 
takes it ill that any should remind him of it : 
every day brings him nearer to the close of his 
enjoyment, and lessens it in doing so — like the 
descent of a traveller from a hill, the boundary 
closing every moment as he advances. But 
how unlike to the believer's upward progress! 
The farther he proceeds, the more the prospect 
opens ; every day he sees it wider, clearer, and 
more beautiful. If he counts his years, it is 
as the minor counts the years of his minority. 
He may be very rich and very happy now ; 
but the bulk of his inheritance is to come, and 
it comes nearer every monient ; and when pos- 
sessed, it will be unbounded, exhaustless, and 
interminable. Jesus knew what it was, for it 
had been his from all eternity. His people 
cannot know, but they do deeply share his glad 
anticipations. 

My subject grows under my hand. Where 
is the limit of the believer's joys ? They 
increase in the measuring and multiply in the 
telling. Is he not a partaker also in that joy 
which angels feel on the calling of a sinner to 
repentance ? Jesus doubtless w^as, and so are 



,226 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

we, if we are one with Him. It is impossible it 
should be otherwise. One who knows the value 
of his own soul cannot remain indifferent to the 
safety of others' souls : and his heart does 
surely glow within him, in gladness propor- 
tioned to the divine love that animates it, when 
he hears of the conversion of a sinner, however 
distant and unknown. He sees in the event 
another triumph of redeeming love, another 
creature rescued from destruction : to himself 
it is the gaining of another brother, another 
friend and companion for eternity, though it 
may be a stranger here. The world mistakes 
this rejoicing for a sort of party-spirit exulting 
in the accession of strength by the bringing over 
of another on our side : a bold judgment, never- 
theless, wheo the word of God declares that the 
triumph extends to heaven. But there are 
cases of still nearer and deeper interest. The 
believer may be himself the instrument of sal- 
vation to the lost. Saved by grace, without any 
merit of his own, he may be so blessed, so 
honoured, as to be the means of saving others in 
conveying to them the words of life and truth. 
It is difficult to think so : we feel so unworthy, 
we scarcely can believe it possible. We feel as 



IN HIS JOYS. 227 

Moses did, " What am I, that I should go 
unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth 
the children of Israel out of Egypt ^" '' I am 
not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou 
hast spoken to thy servant : but I am slow of 
speech, and of a slow tongue." But God 
answers us as he answered him : " Who hath 
made man's mouth ? or who maketh the dumb, 
or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind ? have not 
I, the Lord. Now therefore go, and I will be 
with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt 
say." He chooses to impose this high employ- 
ment upon us, unworthy and unfit ; the most 
honourable that can occupy a created being, 
because the likest to the work of Christ on 
earth. Angels have not been honoured with it. 
And wonderful as it seems, to none more won- 
derful than to himself, the believer performs 
his errand. He finds a fellow-creature in dark- 
ness, and he gives him light ; — in misery, and 
he gives him bliss ; — in bondage, and he sets 
him ftee. Like the surprise of the apostles 
when they found the spirits were subject to 
them, is our wonder at our own access : and 
while we give all the glory to Him in whose 
hands we are but passive tools, it is difficult to, 



228 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

conceive a sweeter or a holier joy, than that 
which animates a believer's bosom, when he 
perceives he has been to any one a messenger 
of peace. To any one — but it may be more, 
far more than this. It may be to our dearest 
to our best-beloved* It may be to the child 
over whom we have yearned in patient sorrow 
through years of godlessness and folly. It 
may be to the parent, the wife, the husband, the 
more than self, whose steps we have watched 
and counted one by one, with throes of intensest 
anguish, as each step brought them nearer to 
the precipice they could not see, and we had 
no power to stop them. If it be one of these 
we are employed to save ! Children of this 
world, you cannot taste this joy, but you have 
the means of conceiving what it may be. You 
have pitied, you have loved, you have tasted 
the pleasure of rescuing some fellow-creature 
from temporal ruin, restoring some distressed 
one to temporal prosperity. You do know the 
pleasure of doing good. And you know what 
it is to watch expiring life in your own best- 
beloved ; to dread a separation from what you 
call for-ever, and by a blessing on your cares to 
receive the dying back again. You remember 



IN HIS JOYS. 229 

that sentence — " Out of clanger." Stretch the 
idea from the finite to the infinite : think of the 
danger as everlasting, of the ruin as endless, 
the separation as eternal. You may then com- 
pass something of an idea of the believer's joy 
in the spiritual regeneration of those he loves ; 
they are " out of danger.'' If there is a joy 
worthy to have filled and satisfied the Re- 
deemer's bosom in the days of his humanity, it 
surely might be this. 

There is still much more. I do not know 
if Jesus ever tasted the delights of human 
sympathy. In most things He could not, for 
He could not be understood. ,There are those 
among men whom deeper-toned feeling or 
intenser intellect condemns to walk alone ; for 
ever spending what no one pays them back : 
capable of administering to others' wants, but 
obliged to go to Heaven with their own : like 
a stream of water from which all may drink, 
but none can supply the current when it fails. 
Their joys, and sorrows, and thoughts, and 
feelings, if they attempt to express them, are 
not understood ; and like the planetary spheres 
they seem so bright to others, no one conceives 
the cold opaqueness of their isolated spirits* 
20 



230 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

Christ, above all others, was so circumstanced. 
From the time he quitted the bosom of ihe 
Father, He had no equal, no companion; his 
disciples, they who loved him best, wondered 
at him and knew not what he meant. In a 
time of extreme necessity, angels were sent to 
minister to him because mortals could not, and 
they perhaps were insufficient. I do not know 
if ever Jesus sat down with those He loved, to 
talk together of their eternal hopes, emd hold 
communion of the things unseen, for mutual 
consolation ; it is likely not. There is, never- 
theless a passage in a psalm applied to Christ, 
that might imply it ; where, speaking of him 
who betrayed Him, he says, "We took sweet 
counsel together," &c. But whether Jesus 
tasted it or not. He has left the communion 
of the saints to be a blessing and a solace to 
his church. Dissensions and divisions among 
ourselves have so made void this blessing, 
it scarcely can be said to exist any longer 
among the church at large. But between 
individuals whom circumstances bring together, 
and the bonds of Christ unite, there is a sym- 
pathy of most exquisite enjoyment, quite sepa- 
rate from the intercourse of earthly friendship ; 



IN HIS JOYS. 231 

although the strongest cement to it and its best 
ingredient when they are found together. And 
because a believer's hopes, and joys, and expec- 
tations, and desires, are common to all believers, 
and their object of deepest interest is the same, 
the language of his heart will be understood, 
and his feelings find sympathy, where by na- 
ture there would have been no bond of union. 
From our great defectibility, this enjoyment is 
not what it might be ; perhaps never so little 
what it might be as at this time. But there are 
those still, who fear the Lord and speak often 
one to another ; and there is a sweetness in such 
intercourse, a holy joy in such communion, to 
which Christ is a party, and God himself 
a listener,* which cannot be equalled by any- 
thing in the ordinary intercourse of life. It 
makes, indeed, as every experienced Christian 
knows, the intercourse of common society seem 
very palling and insipid. Accustomed among 
themselves, to communications of such deep and 
heart-touching interest, the children of God are 
very sensitive to the littleness of all common 
talk ; and in contact with the world are thence 

*Mal.iii. 16. 



232 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

exposed to be sometimes thought offended, when 
they are really only uninterested. 

" If any man be in Christ Jesus, old things 
are passed away, all things are become new.'* 
From this renovating process flows a perpetual 
current of increasing joy into the bosom of 
God's people. Their possessions are all new- 
possessions. Their house, their lands, their 
friends, their children, the common air they 
breathe, the bread they put into their mouths : 
O it is all new, when sanctified by the blessing 
of the Lord, when divine love has taken pos- 
session of the heart. It is like that enchanter's 
touch which turned every thing to gold. We 
all know the magic influence of some newly 
acquired bliss to embellish every thing around 
us. How it changes the scene, and changes 
the actors, and changes the most common inci- 
dents and occupations, by the " the couleur de 
rose" it spreads over them. This is but a faint 
resemblance of the sober, calm, abiding tinge 
of heavenly blessedness, that shines on every- 
thing in the Christian's way. Would w^e could 
say effectually to the hearts of all men. " Taste 
and see." 



CHAPTER Vlll- 

IN HIS DEATH. 

"^^If we be dead with Christy we shall also live 
with himP — Rom. vi. 8. 

It is commonly said, that man is born to die s 
yet this was never true but once. The children 
of Adam are born indeed, since their first 
father's fall, in a condition in which they must 
die, or perhaps we should say better, are to 
die ; for of the necessity we know nothing ; the 
translation of Enoch and Elijah are unexplained ^ 
as also that future transmission of which St. 
Paul speaks — " We shall not all die, but we 
shall all be changed." The sons" of Adam^ 
then, are to die : but this was no purpose of 
their first creation. Life, not death, was the 
gift that God bestowed upon his creatures^ 
20* 



234 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

when He placed them in what we now so justly 
call a passing, perishing world. " Death," 
natural and spiritual death, " hath passed upon 
all men, for that all have sinned ;" but 
unless we are to say that man was designed 
for sin, we cannot say that he was designed for 
death. It tends to no conclusion, that science 
finds in every new-born child the symptoms of 
fore-doomed decay ; that the anatomist per- 
ceives the nice machinery of the human frame 
is not calculated to work on unimpaired for 
ever. The same sentence that called thorns 
and thistles from the soil accursed, called dis- 
ease and decay into the dust-consigned body ; — 
the same concussion that altered the whole 
arrangements of the natural world, smote the 
machinery of the human frame. And who can 
say how it altered it ? how instantly it be- 
came unfit for its original purpose, incapable 
of its first destination, and unmeet to serve the 
spirit that animated it, as that spirit itself be- 
came to serve its Maker? Whether the like- 
ness of God, in which He created man, was a 
corporeal, as well as a moral similitude, revela- 
tion does not intimate. By analogy we might 
be led to suppose it ; and the rather that the 



IN HIS DEATH. 235 

term man, " Let us make man in our own 
likeness," designates the compound being, soul 
and body, and neither distinctively. On the 
other hand, form is adverse to our ideas of 
Deity, and when the moral image begins to be 
retraced upon the soul, no change takes place 
in the body; that impartition of the Spirit 
which renews the mind, makes no impression 
on the corporeal frame; while of the renewal 
of the body at the resurrection, no more is 
predicated, than that it shall be like his glorious 
body who is man as well as God. 

It does not signify — in Adam all died : the 
soul at once, by the loss of God's vivifying 
Spirit — the body by slow, but not postponed 
decease : for I beheve it is philosophically said, 
that man begins to die at the moment of his 
entrance into life, being never purely healthful. 
So also in Christ all must be made alive ; the 
soul in gradual sanctification by the renewing 
of the Holy Ghost, perfected at the moment of 
'departure hence — the body at once, when the 
trumpets shall sound and the dead shall be 
raised. That dissolution of the union between 
them, which makes of the one an unclothed 
spirit, of the other a sodden clay, we dis- 



236 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

tinctively call death ; but that is not in Scrip- 
ture the primitive or the principal meaning of 
the term, nor its most frequent application. 
We talk very loosely of such things, and if it 
were only talk it would not signify. But I 
think our ideas also may be too vague, too 
unexamined, and too little weighed. We call 
the soul immortal, and the body mortal — terms 
sufficiently accurate for common parlance, 
wherein they mean no more than that at our 
dissolution the spirit retains its conscious being 
in happiness or wo, while the body for a time 
becomes insensible of existence. We have 
received this impression from Scripture — per- 
haps from nature — certainly from tradition 
throughout every age and country in the 
world. I have not the smallest doubt of its 
correctness. But excepting in this restricted 
sense, the terms are not correct, as applied to 
soul or body preferentially. One is no more 
mortal, no more immortal, than the other : 
nothing is immortal in itself but God. The 
spirit exists no longer than he holds it in 
existence. He says it shall exist for ever ; and 
on his word we justly say it is immortal. But 
perhaps we neglect to consider what makes it 



IN HIS DEATH. 237 

SO : as if immortality were inherent in its nature, 
which cannot, I conceive, be true of any created 
essence. And the body — has not God said it 
shall be immortal too? — raised up with the 
soul to everlasting life. We see the vivifying 
spirit leave it — we see the particles of matter 
that composed it, separate and disperse ; we 
say that it is dead, and we speak correctly, for 
God has so applied the term. But not one 
particle of that body ceases to exist ; we have 
no reason to think, but every reason to think 
otherwise, that one atom of the material universe 
has ever been annihilated, or that the Creator 
does not intend to maintain it in some form of 
existence for ever. 

With respect to the human body. He has told 
us what He intends : " The Lord shall raise it 
up again at the last day." Life is suspended, 
not terminated; and it is consciousness, not 
existence, that is suspended, for every portion of 
the body is still in being, and the same body 
shall arise to immortahty. We pretend not to 
discern in what the identity will consist ; but 
it is the resurrection of the dead — the buried 
dead, which is the body, not the soul, for that 
was never committed to the dust. Therefore 



238 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

there must be corporeal identity, however great 
the change. '' It is sown in corruption — it is 
raised in incorruption ; it is sown in dishonour 
— it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weakness 
— it is raised in power ; it is sown a natural 
body — it is raised a spiritual body." Such is 
the manner of its change — the manner of its 
unity is a secret of Omnipotence. 

Soul and body are equal participants of the 
fall, and man's subsequent corruption. Some 
people speak of their bodies as if they were 
the only culprits, holding the pure spirit in 
unwilling bondage, and fancy that as soon as 
the body is put off, the soul will, without any 
process of sanctification, be found immaculate. 
Men talk — sinners dead in trespasses and sins, 
talk of their angelic spirits prisoned in unmeet 
habitations here, hereafter to soar in spotless 
purity to their native heaven ; as if, unearthly 
in themselves, our souls were but inearthed in 
corruption for a time, and that against their 
will. This is poetic language, but it is not the 
language of Scripture or of truth. These 
high-born spirits have inearthed themselves, 
and do but too well become their sordid habi- 
tation, and too well like it ; and when the base 



IN HIS DEATH. 239 

habilments fall off, they will be found naked 
indeed, but not clothed in angelic purity; 
they will be freed indeed, but only from the 
restraints that fear, and conscience, and for- 
bearing mercy, now impose upon them. To 
all whom the hour of dissolution overtakes in 
an unregenerate state, in the likeness of the 
first Adam, the only effect of the soul's separa- 
tion from the body, is to leave the one as 
meet for hell as the other for the dust : for in 
Adam both have died — one spiritually, one 
temporally ; and unless made ahve in Christ, 
both are dead eternally. For though the de- 
parted spirit still exists, and the buried corpse 
is to be recalled to judgment, this miserable 
perpetuity of being is never called life in 
Scripture — it is emphatically called death — 
death everlasting. Upon which I again ob- 
serve, the word properly designates, in divine 
language, a state of existence, not an extinction 
of it. When applied by the unbelieving Jews 
to those who had departed in faith, Christ 
denies the application : — " God is not the God 
of the dead." He would not have done so had 
they spoken of Ahab or Jeroboam, though all 
were committed to the same dust. 



240 ' CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

Unmindful of the real nature of the fall, 
inconsiderate Christians sometimes make a 
fictitious distinction between the soul and the 
body when they speak of sin, as if, since its 
renewal by divine, grace, the soul had become 
the excused and irresponsible victim of the 
body's frailty and corruption. " The flesh 
warreth against the spirit, and the spirit against 
the flesh." This is Scripture language, but it 
cannot be so appUed. The term flesh, here 
and elsewhere in Holy Writ, designates the 
whole of the natural man, both soul and body, 
as opposed to the spiritual man renewed by 
divine grace. The words make no distinction 
between what men thoughtlessly call their vile 
bodies and their immortal souls. The body 
was not vile till sin made it so ; the soul is vile 
— most vile of all things, till it is washed in 
the blood of Jesus. Eve's spirit sinned by 
culpable desire to know, before her hand was 
put forth to take the fruit. It was the corrod- 
ing envy of a sin-conceived soul that armed 
the first murderer's hand ; and it is still out of 
the heart that proceed all sinful desires and 
ungodly purposes, and " every evil thought." 
And when by conversion of the heart the spirit 



IN HIS DEATH.' 241 

becomes an altar of the living God, the body 
becomes his temple, sanctified mito good works, 
" Know ye not that your body is the temple of 
the Holy Ghost ?" Christ has not redeemed 
the one, and left the other to destruction. The 
Holy Spirit has not perfected the soul, and left 
it to endure innocently the corruption of the 
body. How differently speaks the beautiful 
benediction of our church, formed on the 
language of Scripture : — " The blood of our 
Lord Jesus, which was shed for you, preserve 
your bodies and souls unto everlasting life.'' 
A season of probationary suffering, of infirmity 
and sin, remains to both. How large a portion 
of that sin, that infirmity and sorrow, is the 
spirit's own ; how much, oftener the body sinks 
under the soul's anguish, than the soul under 
the body's weakness, they have had small 
experience in life who do not know. 

The inaccuracy of our ideas as to what 
death really is, has in many ways an injurious 
tendency — it is liable to beget in some minds 
an indolent acquiescence in sin, as a temporal 
calamity incident to the spirit's union with the 
body ; it acts fatally on those who, soul and 
body, are dead already, and do not know it; 
21 



242 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

and sometimes painfully on those, who, alive , 
already in Christ Jesus, shall not see death. 

What, then, is the reality of that sentence 
of death which has passed on all men, for that 
all have sinned, as it stands unreserved against 
the still impenitent? It is a fearful, fearful 
thing. We need not separate the soul from 
the body, the present from the future — 'it is 
abhorrent to both, it is awful throughout. It 
begins in the womb — it is suspended never — it 
terminates nowhere. And if there is a point 
in the dark infinitude so much more awful than 
the rest, that it has come to be called exclu- 
sively by the name that properly designates the 
whole, it is because at that point all hope, all 
possibility of revocation, terminates. But O 
what deaths men die before they come here — 
what deaths of mental anguish and corporeal 
torture — till, reckless of all consequences, they 
call on this to be their friend, and precipitate 
themselves into it, as if it were really what it 
seems to be — an end. ^' The life of man is as 
the flower of the field, which springeth up in 
the morning and at night is cut down and 
withered" — " as a tale that is told" — " as a 
vision of the night when it is passed" — " so soon 



IN HIS DEATH. 243 

passeth it away, and we are gone." These are 
just, but partial figures — beautiful images of 
life's frailty, brevity, and nothingness. But if 
the imagination seizes exclusively on these, as 
it is too apt to do, because they are the least 
abhorrent features of death's countenance, and 
takes them for the whole ; with adventitious 
horror adding to them perhaps the ceremonials 
of the tomb, the funeral rites, the silent church- 
yard, and the loathsome worm, an impression 
is left upon the mind as injurious as it is ficti- 
tious : blinding with mere sentiment the eyes 
of the thoughtless, perishing sinner ; and veil- 
ing from the timid saint the bright prospect of 
eternal bliss. The fear of death we are told, 
is natural. Yes, it is most natural, and most 
reasonable, for it is of all things the most 
abhorrent to a rational and spiritual being. 
Would that men feared it more a thousand- 
fold ! But let our fears know their object. It 
is not the cold clay and loathsome worm ; it 
is not the writhing pang of corporeal agony 
that separates the body from the soul ; it is not 
even the mental anguish of parting love and 
disappointed hopes. All these are objects of 
exaggerated dread, suffered more in anticipation 



244 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

than ever in the reality — of which it is justly 
said in Scripture, " Men live all their lifetime in 
bondage through fear of death." Death is not 
the thing of a day, an hour, a moment. He 
is not a predatory conqueror whom a single 
victory satisfies, and he returns no more. He 
is a king — the king of terrors ; he is said to 
have reigned from Adam downward. From 
the first moment of existence the infant becomes 
his sometimes spared, but always devoted, 
victim. Moral, physical, eternal death begins. 
Of the first, man is insensible, but not of the 
sufferings that proceed from it. He may not 
care for sin; but he cares for the stings and 
torments of his perturbed passions, and all the 
wounds he receives from others' sin — that in- 
calculable fund of misery which human selfish- 
ness has amassed for daily distribution among 
the children of man ; the consequence, all of it, 
of moral death — the death that the soul has 
died. And then the physical : what tortures 
some begin to suffer as soon as they begin to 
live ; what lives of lingering decease they are 
consigned to in their mother's womb. But 
this is not all, nor most. The king of terrors 
reigns not in our bodies only — he reigns in our 



IN HIS DEATH. 245 

families, in our homes, in our hearts ; he can 
desolate them all. And what good can the life 
do us that he spares ? What joy is there thai 
he cannot end ? What prospect is there that he 
cannot devastate ? AVhat heart is there so 
fenced, so fortified in bUss, that if heavenly 
consolations interpose not, he cannot find 
means to break it. And finally, there is the 
death eternal. The much would still be little 
but for this. If the young beauty were indeed 
cut off like the fresh grass of the morning — if 
the busy for this world were crushed like the 
ant in their no longer required labours, and the 
bereaved and broken-hearted had only to He 
down in the grave, and be at rest, death would 
be but half a tyrant still — at least there would 
be a limit to his reign ; he could give no wound 
so deep but his own hand must heal it, nor hold 
.a slave he must not at last set free. But, 
that worm that dieth not — that fire that is 
not quenched — that lifting up of the eyes in 
torment — that calling upon the rocks to fall 
on us, and hide us from the wrath of the 
Lamb — of him who was once a lamb, gentle, 
tender, suffering — first crucified, and now 
neglected — but then to be a judge and an 
21* 



246 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

avenger ! — should men look on such a death, 
and fear not? Is this the tremendous reality 
for which we substitute a sentimental fiction, 
and shudder at the one while we brave out the 
other 1- If this is a real picture of mortaUty, 
and it is, to all who are yet dead in Adam, 
men talk a foolish language. There is no 
cowardice in fearing such a death as this, and 
no courage in going rashly and fearlessly to 
meet it ; there is no philosophy in despising 
it under any of its characters, and no dignity 
in resigning ourselves to its bondage. The 
more elevated the nature is, the more it should 
shrink from such a destiny ; the more refined 
and purified the feelings, the more abhorrent 
should be such a fate. Never was it so much 
so as to Christ himself — to him who alone was 
really born to die — purposely, voluntarily, lived 
on earth, that he might suffer death. Those 
who speak lightly, or even courageously, of 
this penalty of sin, will find no encouragement 
in Christ's example. He did not despise it — 
He did not brave it — He endured it ; but not 
that with stoic insensibility; not that without 
shrinking. There is not in all his holy bearing 
upon earth a shade of that heroic bravery which 



IN HIS DEATH. 247 

men so much admire, and persist in calling 
great, though often exhibited by the worst 
of men, and in the worst of causes ; and when 
exhibited in the best — yes, let us tear away at 
once the guise with which human admiration 
has clothed this heroism — whatever the charac- 
ter, whatever the cause, whoever does not 
shrink from suffering, does not fear death, on 
any other ground but because in Christ he has 
eternal life, is not brave, but mad — is not 
exalted, but stultified, brutalized. Like the 
wreath-encircled ox prepared for heathen sacri- 
fice, he goes he knows not whither, to endure 
he knows not what ; to meet unhelped the 
whole weight of that tremendous sentence — 
*' In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die ;'' 
death temporal, spiritual, eternal ; that sentence 
which when He met who had the strength of 
Deity to bear it with, He started back, and 
could not have proceeded but for the memory 
of his Father's promise — '' Thou wilt not leave 
mj soul in hell, nor suffer thy holy One to see 
corruption :" but that He knew the enemy was 
to perish in his grasp, and death to die in him. 
No — Christ was not so brave as men are; 
He feared sin's penalty, and his Father's 



248 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

vengeance ; ^' He groaned in spirit and was 
troubled." He had need to encourage himself 
before it, in calling to mind the object of his 
suffering, and the reward that was set before 
him. " Yet for this cause came I into the 
w^orld." Eternal death — the sentence passed 
on us, and if not reversed, extending from our 
birthtime on for ever — in him was concentrated 
into a few brief years, in collected, but not 
diminished agony. We see in a moment how 
this would be impossible but for his infinity as 
God. If He were anything less than God, his 
few years' death and passion might be a pic- 
tural representation — an e^gy of our eternal 
death ; but an equivalent, an atonement, it 
could not be ; nothing but infinitude of power 
to endure could make the concentration possi- 
ble. To enter into the particulars of Jesus' 
death, from his assumption of mortality till, 
having finished his work, and made an end 
of death for himself and his redeemed, He 
put it oif and returned to the bosom of his 
Father, would be repeating what I have 
already said in the chapter of his afflictions. 
Be it sufficient to say that death to our Lord 
was the season of his detention here, not the 



IN HIS DEATH. 249 

moment of his departure hence : it was the 
burthen of imputed sin, with all the sufferings 
incident upon it, and the wrath of God therein : 
which ended with the ending of this mortal life. 

I do not ask now, as I have asked before, 
where is there any likeness to it in the world. 
In their death there is a likeness, though in the 
spirit of it none. The same curse that was 
upon Jesus, is still upon every one from whom 
he has not removed it — upon every one who is 
not made alive in him. That death which 
Jesus feared, is still for them to fear. That 
suffering which his holy soul abhorred, they 
are hourly exposed to, perhaps hourly endur- 
ing : and a moment is at hand, they know not 
how near, which is neither the end nor the be- 
ginning of their death ; but that point in its eternal 
duration, which is the end of hope, the beginning 
of despair, wherein the tyrant will clasp his 
long-affianced ones in indissoluble union. But 
they are unmindful of its approach : pleased with 
their present, and fearless of their future death. 

I know not which is the most melancholy- 
sight to a believing mind. The world's proud 
hero, dying amid the shouts of recent victory, 
with an appeal to posterity to record his deeds, 



250 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

and to fame to secure him immortality ; bnt 
unmindful of a record already made in heaven, 
and an immortality prepared perhaps elsewhere ; 
or the patient sufferer, arrested by sickness in 
the prime of life, yielding with mournful 
resignation to a hard necessity ; but ignorant of 
sin, a stranger to Christ, and regardless of 
that primeval sentence out-standing still against 
him, never misgiving that death is more to him 
than the dissolving of his earthly ties, and cut- 
ling asunder of his earthly schemes. " Tri- 
umphant in death f " Resigned in death." 
O how the believer shudders at those phrases, 
as they are uttered and repeated through the 
world with such insensate admiration. Could 
somxO one of those celestial beings, who are 
about our paths doing the errands of the Al- 
mighty, awed as they must be by what they hear, 
interpose, in accents audible, a single word 
between those perverted epithets — the world 
itself would start aside with horror. " Trium- 
phant in eternal death ;" " Resigned to eternal 
death." How intensely terrific ! And yet it is so. 
If there be truth in anything that God has said, it 
is so. If that Scripture we profess to believe is 
not a fiction, it is thus with every one who, hav- 



IN HIS DEATH. 261 

ing sinned after the similitude of Adam, is not 
renewed by the Holy Spirit into the likeness of 
Christ Jesus. There is nothing in such deaths as 
these that can be likened to the Saviour's death. 
To all He sunk beneath they are indifferent — 
to all that supported Him they die insensible. 
" My God, my God ! why hast thou forsaken 
me ?" Th^y have a God in Christ to v^^hom 
they do not cry — they are forsaken and they do 
not know it — they are dying under the burthen 
of unexpiated sin, and do not feel it, do not 
fear it. 

But Christ is no longer dead: and he can 
die no more. And they that are in him are 
dead no longer. '' They are alive from the 
dead," " passed from death to life." And 
they can die no more. " If any man can keep 
my saying, he shall not see death." They are 
united in eternal vitality with him who has 
" abolished death, and brought life and immor- 
tality to hght through the gospel." It is here, 
in the redeemed of the Lord, we must look for 
the remaining features of the Saviour's death. 
The world and the church have for once 
divided the likeness. The judicial sentence — 
the penal agony — the divine abandonment— 



252 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

the crush of unforgiven sin— these, the real, 
the only essential death, are for his enemies — 
for them who first crucified or now neglect 
him. " Crucifying to themselves the Son of 
God afresh." Far other is the resemblance 
his people are called upon and privileged to 
exhibit. There is a sense in which the disciple 
of Christ is required to be conformed to the like- 
ness of his death : which having spoken of at 
length in the chapter on Afflictions, 1 shall 
adve^ to here but briefly^ In his body, aye, 
and in his soul too, he is susceptible of many a 
wound, but never a mortal one, from him who 
is still his enemy — his vanquished, flying 
enemy — though no longer his tyrant or his 
king. He has limbs that can ache, and loved 
ones that can be taken, and a heart that can be 
desolated. The Christian spirit is not a bold 
and lofty daring, that makes light of the con- 
sequences of the primeval curse, whatever 
portion of them may be still upon him. He is 
as one just recovering from a mortal pestilence. 
He is no longer in fear of dying, no longer 
susceptible of the disease, and can walk securely 
amid the contagion round him. But he still 
suffers from the past ; he is weak and in pain ; 



IN HIS DEATH. 253 

timl must have recourse to many bitter medica- 
ments for the recovery of his strength : small 
matters in comparison, occasions of gratitude 
rather than complaint : but still painful remem- 
brancers of danger past, not joyous but grievous 
while they stay, which he looks forward in 
hope to be reheved from. As St. Paul speaks, 
" These light afflictions which are but for a 
moment ;" but stiil they were afflictions^ small 
remnants of the death that nature loathes, 
symptoms still lingering in the recovered soul. 
A Christian is not called upon to love them, 
neither permitted to despise them. " My son, 
despise not thou the chastening of the Lord." 
He is not heard to talk about these lingering 
characters of death with a proud and philo- 
sophic bravery ; nor give applause to those that 
do. This is that language of society the be- 
liever cannot learn. Death and eternity are to 
him but one idea, and that idea is either hell or 
heaven : he cannot talk Hghtly and fictitiously 
of either. Jesus never did. Young Christians, 
who have such a language to unlearn, should 
do it with w^atchful care ; for although it be 
our mother tongue, it does not become the 
adopted family of God. It is not seemly to 
22 



254 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

talk of death as if it were some mysterious? 
change — a mighty casualty leading to unknown 
results — a magician's wand to touch individual 
being into a half-mortal, half-immortal thing — 
a half-condemned and half-acquitted victim : 
as if it were an isolated moment, dependent on 
a thousand accidents, which it is reasonable to 
fear though it be the gate of everlasting bliss^ 
and noble to brave though it be the entrance to 
eternal wo. No conventional usage of society 
can justify the believer in such language, how- 
ever unseemingly used. We know that it is 
not so. We know the moment of dissolution 
is only the consummation of the sentence, " In 
the day that thou eatest, thou shalt die :" or 
the consummation of the promise, " He that 
believeth on me, hath everlasting life'^ — fit 
object of the intensest horror, or divinest joy. 
We know that it frees the penitent from the 
presence of that sin from whose dominion he 
was freed before, and consigns the impenitent 
to its penalty and its tyranny for ever. We 
know it is the sickle that cuts down both wheat 
and tares — one for the garner, the other for 
the burning — but makes no change in either. 
We never ought to hear the word without 



IN HIS DEATH. 255 

having one or other of these destinies in mo- 
mentous reahty before us. We never ought 
to use it but in such a manner as becomes the 
lips of one who believes in the absolute, fixed, 
immutable certainty, that the severance of soul 
and body which this word signifies, is nothing 
more, and nothing less, than the consummation 
of happiness or misery, sin or hohness, life or 
death, which has begun before the stroke is 
struck We may not know, we are not in most 
cases calJed upon to judge, which of the two 
realities is designated when we hear of indi- 
vidual deaths. If that on which it depends 
should be withhi our cognizance, we do know 
even this. And what do we but encourage 
others- in unbelief by expressing ourselves 
doubtfully *? But if not, we know still that it 
is the one or the other — an awful alternative, 
respecting which it ill becomes us to' speak in 
the dubitable and almost heathenish phraseology 
current among men. 

In speaking of dissolution, or thinking of it 
for ourselves, I wish the language of our lips 
and of our hearts were more constantly what it 
should be. Where the discrepancy is mere 
timidity of expression, in which the heart has 



256 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

no concurrence, a very little consideration would 
surely convince the pious Christian how much 
encouragement he gives to indifference and 
incredulity, by alluding to his decease with 
expressions of alarm — to his advancing years 
in a tone of regret — to the pass of dissolution as 
a barrier beyond which he cannot see. I have 
been pained— perhaps we all have — by hearing 
such expressions from persons of whom I knew, 
and they knew, there was no shadow of a mean- 
ing in them. They did not feel regret, or alarm, 
or doubt, when the idea of death was seriously 
present to their minds. These wxre but care- 
less words. But I have been pained for the 
unbelieving, the fearful, the insensible, who 
hearing such language from persons professing 
to have the secrets of eternal life, might well 
suppose the Christian's joy and confidence a 
fiction, and hold themselves excused for disre- 
garding what those who received it could not 
depend upon. When Jesus stood at the tribunal 
of his enemies, the moment when his boast 
must seem the most absurd, when his preten- 
sions were about to be most obviously disproved, 
and there was, of all times, the least probability 
that He should be believed, Jesus silent upon 



' IN HIS DEATH. 257 

all beside, refusing to answer accusations or 
say whence He came, opened his mouth to 
assert his future glory : " Hereafter shalt thou 
see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand 
of power." Christians, in presence of their 
temporal death, have been often heard to use 
as confident a language ; and may use it, and 
ought to use it, in the same faith as Jesus did. 
But why should it be heard only on the death- 
bed, where he may not have power to utter it ; 
or if he does, may have no careless world to 
hear it? Standing always in death's presence, 
always in presence of at least his spiritual ene- 
mies, and compassed by a crowd of unbelieving 
witnesses, why does a false, and I think a per- 
nicious, modesty prevent the assured believer 
from speaking always with the confidence he 
feels of his future destination, and the glory 
that awaits him when he shall seem to die*? 
Men would call it presumption, they would say 
that he blasphemes. No doubt, and so they 
have done before. Jesus was mocked, and his 
pretensions were not believed : and yet it was 
the only thing he thought necessary to declare. 
And I must think that God is dishonoured, 
and his sure promise put to shame, when those 
22* 



'^5S CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

who feel this confidence forbear to express it if 
occasion serves ; or if occasion does not serve 
to speak of it directly, are heard to drop any- 
thing not consistent v^ith it. Jesus did neither. 
I am aware that there is more in it than this. 
It is the heart full often that, when brought to 
trial by lis internal accusers, refuses to reply, 
and hearing from within the decisive question, 
" Art thou then the son of God ?" has not 
courage enough to assert it. There may be 
reason for the hesitation, or there may not. In 
either case, though I think we should still so 
guard our speech, that our fears may appear 
what they really are, doubts of our individual 
interest in Christ, not of the things prepared 
for them that love him, 1 do not intend to say 
that we should manifest a confidence we do 
not feel. It is the heart that must first be 
dealt with. " Make your calling and election 
sure." If this could not be done, you had not 
been bidden to do it. God's honour is con- 
cerned in it, and the welfare of your brethren. 
And when this is done, when you have no 
reasonable doubts that you are united to Christ 
in the resurrection to life, contemplate in him 
your rreal situation with respect to death, and 



IN HIS DEATH. 259 

do not rob yourself of jour happiness, nor him 
of his glory before men. 

The death that Jesus feared — speaking of 
ourselves as believers — is not for us to fear. 
The judicial curse — the penal sentence — the 
divine displeasure originally designated by that 
awful word, at first pronounced in paradise. 
If we are born anew in Christ, we have nothing 
to do with these, and therefore cannot fear 
them : they are suffered ; they are past ; it was 
a debt to Almighty justice, and has been paid. 
*'• Death," such death, " is swallowed up in 
victory." What then remains to us of that 
transmutation men distinctively call death, 
which all are to undergo ? The same that 
remained to Christ when all of this was past — 
" I go to my Father." It is indeed impossible to 
say what that may mean : what may be the 
measure of that eternal weight of glory which 
is prepared for us with him beside the Father's 
throne; the bliss of those many mansions in 
the Father's house, prepared for our reception 
as soon as our sometime enemy shall bring the 
key. Death ! what a misnomer ! The behever 
uses the word because it serves the purpose, 
but the idea it stands for in his mind has 
22** 



260 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

nothing death-like in it : rather say that all is 
death beside, and that word stands for life. 
It means what Christ meant when he said, " It 
is finished." There is a resemblance, an 
identity between him and his people, that in 
this feature at least cannot be gainsayed. In 
the weak of his flock it may be faintly sensible, 
and but obscurely seen ; not so much because 
it is not there, as because it is obscured by 
some extraneous cause. The weakest believer 
does look with delight towards eternity in 
general, however occasional doubts of his ow^n 
state may interrupt the joyful anticipation ; or 
some physical infirmity, or some superstitious 
dread of the mere act of dying, may veil the 
prospect from his eyes, as a mere vapour veils 
the risen sun. In the strong in faith, the 
resemblance may be seen entire, ^' I go to my 
Father :" this is his idea of dissolution ; and it 
means to him all that is meant to Christ : the 
end of every evil — the end of sorrow, pain, pri- 
vation, and, above all, of sin : the beginning — 
He does not know of what — but of that which 
he who alone knew, claimed as the reward of 
all his travail here, that He might have it to 
distribute to his redeemed. " The glory which 



IN HIS DEATH. 261 

thou gavest me, I have given to them." " Fa- 
ther, I will that they also whom thou hast 
given liie be with me where I am, that they 
may behold my glory." After long search for 
the rude imperfect lineaments of the Saviour's 
image in the bosom of humanity, it is beautiful 
for once to find the *copy so near to the original. 
We — I speak on the supposition that we have 
in our hearts the substance of things hoped for, 
the evidence of things unseen — we hear con- 
tinually within us what once was heard from 
without, " Blessed are the dead that die in 
the Lord from henceforth, yea, saith the Spirit, 
that they may rest from their labours." And 
we can say what one before has said, " We are 
confident and willing rather to be absent from 
the body, and to be present with the Lord." 
" We desire a better country, that is, a 
heavenly." " Henceforth there is laid up for 
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, 
the righteous judge, shall give me at that day." 
Or those still sweeter words, for they were 
Jesus' words, and they may be ours in him : 
*' O righteous Father, the world hath not known 
thee, but I have known thee." " And now 
come I to thee." " Father the hour is come, 



262 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

glorify thy Son." All these things the be- 
liever hears in his own bosom, whether men 
hear them from his lips or not. In calm anti- 
cipation they go with him through all the 
devious paths of life, the solace of his saddest, 
the exhiliration of his happiest hours. When 
angels came down to minister to Christ, what 
think we that they told him of — what could their 
bright presence bring into his mind, but all the 
glories of his Father's house '? And when the 
same celestial messengers come to us — when in 
some dark calamity, or extreme temptation, the 
Spirit comes himself, what does he present to 
us ? That time when the wicked cease from 
troubling, and the weary are -at rest — that 
place where there are pleasures at God's right 
hand for evermore. And there is no dark- 
ness which the brightness of this vision cannot 
dissipate — no fiery darts of the wicked one it 
cannot quench. Death, temporal death, that 
king of terrors, whose ghastly form the chil- 
dren of this world vainly try to bid away lest 
it should spoil their joys, appears before the 
believer at his bidding, clothed like an angel of 
light, to gild with hope the hours of his sadness : 
for death and heaven to him are but one idea. 



IN HIS DEATH. 263 

1 suppose no argument is required to prove 
that there can be no connexion between this 
joyful anticipation of eternity, founded on a 
scriptural understanding of its great realities, 
and a good hope through faith of our adoption 
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that sort of sen- 
timental desire to die which is not uncommon 
to a melancholy temperament under earthly 
disappointments ; sometimes even in satiety of 
earthly good. I am not sure if that desire, as 
I have frequently heard it expressed, most 
frequently by young people, is a real desire, 
which would not shrink before the demon it 
invokes. But if it is, we need examine no 
further than its language, to perceive that the 
subject of the invocation is no reahty. The 
death they call for is a death that no one 
ever died, nor ever will. There are but two 
deaths — hell, the death in Adam : heaven, the 
death in Christ. Their hope, or their talk at 
least, for perhaps it is little more, is of 
reposing in the grave — of everlasting rest — 
shelter from man's injustice — a draught of 
oblivion to the past : to use the commoner 
phraseology, '' a release:" and if heaven be at 
all in the account, it is the heaven of poetry. 



264 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

not of Scripture. To these mournful sentimen- 
talists we must say again, '' There is no such 
death : be not in so much haste to try the yet . 
unknown : *' Account that the long-suffering of 
our Lord is salvation ;" or may be so, if you 
make diligent use of the interval he mercifully 
grants you. 

But pious Christians do not always desire 
death. I do not know that it is required of 
them to desire it. The Scriptures does not say 
it is ; and I perceive that the most godly and 
holy among men, whom we should think the 
surest of their future destiny, and the fittest to 
enter upon it, do very commonly not desire to 
die, and even manifest some measure of unwill- 
ingness. I confess there is an anomaly in 
this, for which I cannot to its full extent 
account, without referring it to a divine ordina- 
tion for some beneficial purpose to the church. 
To a certain extent it may be well explained. 
St. Paul was in a strait betwixt two : not that 
he was doubtful which was better for himself, 
but because his presence seemed necessary to 
his disciples. This is a motive of weight with 
others, as well as with St. Paul, particularly 
where the welfare and happiness of our best 



^ IN HIS DEATH. 266 

beloved on earth seem to depend on our con- 
tinuance with them. Again, a mysterious and 
undefined dread of the mere act of separation 
between the soul and body has more effect on 
some minds than I think is reasonable : creathig 
a fear of the passage into that eternity which is 
itself an object of desire. More frequently 
perhaps than either, the reluctance to depart 
arises from a still lingering attachment to the 
things of time and sense, not entirely super- 
seded in our divided nature by that love of 
God which would naturally beget a desire to 
be with him ; for we must ever rememberj 
whether in judging of ourselves or others, how 
much of earth there is remaining in the most 
heavenly-minded among men — how much of 
the old man still struggling with the new. 
We are disposed, perhaps, generally to attri- 
bute our unwillingness to depart to a doubt of 
our being ready for the change. If we doubt 
of our interest in Christ, of our renewal by the 
Holy Ghost, we do well to desire the day of 
grace prolonged : I have spoken of this state 
before. But if we are assured of that, the 
Spirit witnessing with our spirits that we are 
the children of God ; if we know that we have 



266 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 

passed from death to life, being justified by '^ 
faith in Jesus Christ, I do not think our 
desires after glory should be checked by any 
doubts of our sufficient sanctification. It is so 
certain that God will not draw his ore from 
the fire till it is sufficiently purified, and so 
impossible for us to know whether it is so or 
not, I think we ought to leave it entirely to 
his care, making no distinction between the 
wish to depart and the wish to be ready to 
depart, since the one includes the other. No 
one of God's people will be taken in unfitness. 
So long as He detains us here, we may under- 
stand his purpose, and any impatience to abridge 
the process would be most unbecoming. But to 
feel fear or reluctance lest He who has under- 
taken our salvation should let his work be 
spoiled by the intervention of a too hasty 
removal, is to distrust him and not ourselves ; 
still supposing we know that we are born anew 
in Christ ; for I would not be understood to 
encourage a presumptuous and rash desire to 
try uncertain ground. I confess, however, that 
when due weight has been given to all these 
counter influences, there remains something 
still to be accounted for, which, because I 



IN HIS DEATH. 26lf 

"bannot solve it otherwise, I am willing to 
ascribe to providential appointment. To call it 
'' a natural love of life" is no solution, because 
the believer, like his Lord, is dying only while 
he lives on earth, and is alive for ever when he 
seems to die ; all that he has to do with death 
is here ; his essential life is hid with Christ in 
God. Then it is so natural to desire felicity, 
to long after what we love, to be willing to 
leave what is dear for the one thing dearer, I 
am persuaded neither nature nor reason can 
decide why they who know heaven to be a 
happier state than earth, who have no doubts of 
their translation thither, and do really love their 
Saviour and their God more than the most 
beloved of earthly beings, do not invariably and 
at all times feel that they should like to die. 
But I perceive they do not ; I cannot say what 
is the judgment of God respecting this unwill- 
ingness. But lest the world should infer from 
it that the expectations of the godly are a 
fiction, to which they cannot fully trust them- 
selves, this I must subjoin, that I never saw 
this reluctance outstand the actual approach of 
death ; and ' I do suppose that no child of God 
has ever died unwillingly. In many cases 



268 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE J \ 

when death has only appeared to be at hand, \ 
I have seen the most earnest desire to depart 
and be with Christ, the most entire detachment 
from all that was to be left behind : and after- 
wards, when life and health returned, those 
desires after heaven have not perceptibly 
remained : as if God for his own purpose had 
given and withdrawn them. I do not think 
the absence of such heavenward aspirings 
should give uneasiness to a Christian spirit, 
seeing how obviouslj?" it does consist with a 
state of salvation and a settled faith. But it 
should be an occasion of self-examination, to 
satisfy ourselves that it does not arise from 
secret unbelief, or from deficient love to him 
whose presence in glory we are in so little 
haste to share. For should the cause of our 
reluctance be in this, the actual approach of 
dissolution will come fraught with aggravated 
fears and bitter conflicts : whereas, if it be 
otherwise, nearer approach will dissipate the 
shades that are about it, and we shall joyfully 
welcome, when it comes, what at a distance we 
know not how to wish for. 

Still — for after all is said, it must be so — he 
is most entirely of the mind of Christ, who 



IN HIS DEATH. 269 

^ looks forward with intensest earnestness to the 
' day of admission to his Father's house — never 
thinks but with gladness of that triumphant 
moment when the conflict with sin and Satan 
shall be ended — when the ultimate purposes of 
existence shall be attained— when God^s glory 
shall be perfected in him, and his effaced 
likeness quite restored ; who contemplates no 
moment of his life so blessed as that in which 
it shall be said he dies. 



THE END. 



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